


To Kill the King

by JGVFHL



Category: Merlin (TV), Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crossover, F--k Canon, Fives Never Dies, Fix-It, Gen, Mild Angst, More Like Shiv Palpatine, Pray for him, Sheev Palpatine?, Stab the Wrinkly Raisin Man, Star Wars: The Clone Wars Season 7 Spoilers, Swearing, and his name is Leon, there is one (1) functional braincell on this team
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 31,301
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25828867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JGVFHL/pseuds/JGVFHL
Summary: Fives doesn't know what he's doing. Less than a standard day ago, all he had to do was take care of Tup, and now he's hurtling through hyperspace, hoping the Guard didn't catch him leaving Coruscant. He doesn't know what he's doing, but he does know that every second Chancellor Palpatine is in power means more chances for the entire galaxy to come crumbling down--and more chances he'll hurt his brothers. Fives needs help, and there's only a few places the Grand Army wouldn't think to look. He only hopes Camelot won't mind hosting a galactic fugitive until he comes up with a plan.
Comments: 27
Kudos: 40





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> THIS HAS A PART 1! It's my work called Worlds Collided. If you haven't read it, that should still be fine for the story, but if you're suddenly wondering how Fives knows where the heck this planet is, it's because of that one shot. So just go skim it over! Leave some kudos!  
> Enjoy!

Rude awakenings in the middle of the night weren’t entirely unusual in Leon’s life. As a boy, he’d lived in the castle with his father and mother, and there had been a few times each year where his father would wake him to kiss his forehead before leaving in a swish of scarlet fabric. Life as a paige and then a squire was similar, and as a knight, he had earned little reprieve. He never complained about it, typically because he was awoken for battle more times than not, and then was not a time to complain about sleep schedules. However, few of his rude awakenings had ever been like this.

His eyes flew open at the sound of knocking on his door. Not pounding or hammering, just knocking. Rubbing his eyes, he pushed back the thin summer bedlinens and went to answer the door.

“Merlin?”

“Leon, sorry to wake you,” the servant prefaced. “The king wants you in the council room, ready to ride.”

“Of course, give me six minutes,” he replied instantly, not even thinking to question his king’s reasoning.

True to his word, six minutes later, Leon strode into the council room, buckling his bracers on by feel as he walked. This room was for more covert meetings not requiring the full Round Table or the court. Arthur stood at the head of the table, Merlin by his side, as always. There was no one else in the room.

“My lord,” Leon greeted him.

“Leon, thank you for your promptness.” Seconds later, Leon turned at the sound of voices approaching, and Gwaine and Percival entered, also fully dressed in mail and cloaks. Even Gwaine’s sour expression at the early hour settled into passivity when he felt the mood of the room. Something was off. “Thank you all for your promptness,” Arthur said.

“Of course, Sire,” Gwaine nodded.

Leon finally noticed that the king was not dressed like the other knights. He had only a light jacket over his undershirt, implying he had also been roused abruptly. The king folded his arms and cleared his throat before speaking, his voice level and calm. “I trust you three recall the party of… unusual visitors we hosted a little over a year ago?”

Unusual was putting it lightly. Everyone within the citadel remembered the day eleven strangers were escorted through the city. Soldiers dressed in white and blue armor, a woman with blue and white horns and orange skin-- no one had forgotten. The knights nodded.

“Well, another ‘flying craft’ was spotted landing in the same general area they did,” the king said. “I just learned of it less than twenty minutes ago, and the man who saw it said it took him about as long to run here.” That meant whoever was in that craft had had almost forty minutes to themself, and had not made themself known to anyone. “As you three were on good terms with the men who were here before, I’m sending you out to investigate. You do not need to initiate contact or communication, I’m only asking for observation. I don’t want Camelot unnecessarily involved in something. Is that understood?”

They nodded. “Yes, Sire.”

“If, by chance, it’s related to the party who were here a year ago, I trust your judgement in bringing them back to the castle. Your horses are waiting in the courtyard. You remember where their ship was before?”

The knights had gone with the strangers back to their ship last time. Gwaine and Leon glanced at Percival, who nodded confidently. He was the best tracker in the castle. “Yes, Sire.” If anyone could retrace a year-old path, it was Percival.

“Very good,” Arthur finished. “On your way, then.”

The knights nodded and left swiftly, Leon taking the lead.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me, right?” Gwaine said, at least remembering to keep his voice down. “They’re back? Why?”

“Who knows,” Percival said.

“We don’t know who it is,” Leon pointed out. “We just know it’s not someone from our world.”

“Great.” Gwaine’s sarcasm was audible. “So what do we do if it’s someone less friendly than the clones?”

“Nothing,” Percival said. “You heard the king, we’re not gonna show ourselves unless we have to.”

They reached the front doors of the castle, and indeed, three horses were tacked and waiting for them. Gwaine groaned quietly. “I hate riding on an empty stomach.”

Leon resisted an eye roll. He was hungry too, but he wouldn’t say anything. It made Gwaine frustrated to see that not everyone was suffering with him. In under a minute, the three knights were trotting out of the castle’s main gates and heading for the woods. In the night, they were just a smear of black against the star-speckled sky. Percival rode first, then Gwaine, then Leon behind. Despite the poor light, they rarely slowed their pace. Percival’s memory served him well.

In a surprisingly short time, they slowed to a walk, Percival’s closed fist held out to one side as a signal to stop. They did, surrounded by the nighttime symphony of the forest. Percival signaled to dismount, and they did, the forest floor muffling their boots. After that, they went on foot for a ways, and eventually, through the dark silhouettes of the trees, there was a faint flicker of light. They all stopped and tied off their mounts, now proceeding by themselves as a tight group.

Finally, they squatted down behind a thick screen of leaves to observe the ship. It looked nothing like the other they had seen. That one had been large and box-like--big enough to carry eleven people. This one was half that size, and streamlined. The faint lights were from the front of it, where the pilot sat, although there was no one at the controls that Leon could see. The knights waited silently, each of them with a tense hand on the pommel of his sword as they watched for signs of life.

Leon kept a vague sense of the time. After several long minutes, a side door hissed and came free of the ship, leaving a gaping hole of darkness in the hull. The knights tensed. Leon squinted his eyes, trying to see through the gloom. Then they heard a voice.

It was quiet, but the forest was quieter, and it carried. It was low, and slightly accented, although it was hard to pick out the distinguishing characteristics at such a low volume. From what he could hear, the owner of the voice was whispering the same message over and over from inside the ship. Were they summoning their courage? Were they actually summoning something? He glanced at his fellows, but they were fixated on the open door.

Movement, at last. Leon’s fingers flexed around the handle of his sword, but he didn’t move. He watched a person--at least they looked and moved like a person--step off the ship. Their bright white armor shone blue in the dim light. Their voice was clearer now, and Leon recognized it. He was a clone. All of them shared remarkably similar speech patterns, and it was nothing like anything in this part of the world.

“Remember the mission. Remember the mission,” the clone repeated, over and over, like he was trying to convince himself of it. “Just explain it. They’ll--they’re not--they’ll never understand… Force--they  _ have _ to understand!”

Leon looked once again at Gwaine and Percival, and they met his gaze.

_ He’s mad, _ Gwaine mouthed, tapping his head with a finger to emphasize his point.

Leon did roll his eyes this time.  _ Help? _ he mouthed back. After a moment to think, Percival shrugged minutely, and Gwaine eventually nodded. They could see the distress the man was in. He didn’t look armed, but he was a built soldier, made to fight, and far from helpless.

Very slowly, Leon began to stand up. It ached his joints after squatting in position for so long, but he forced himself to move inch by inch. The clone didn’t notice. Gwaine and Percival followed suit until all three of them were upright, watching the newcomer pace back and forth, muttering under his breath.

The other knights looked to Leon. Leon nodded and took a steadying breath. He had no idea how this man would react to them, but they had decided to try. “Sir?” he said in full voice.

The man started, dropping instinctively into a defensive position, his back to the ship. “Who’s there?” he barked.

“Sir, we’re over here,” Leon went on, raising his empty hands. “There’s three of us, and we don’t want to hurt you.”

The man narrowed his eyes. “Step forward.”

Slowly, the three knights stepped over the shrubs in front of them into the clearing, all with empty hands on display. “We’re knights of Camelot,” Leon said. “That’s where you’ve landed.”

“Camelot?” the man repeated. “I’m in--I made it?” His stance relaxed, but his voice was still steeped in anxiety.

“You know this place?” Gwaine asked.

“Yes, yes, I do,” he said. “I--I know you. You’re knights. I remember you.”

Leon glanced at the other two. He studied the man in front of him, but he couldn’t place him. He didn’t recognize any unique characteristics on this clone to identify him. “Identify yourself,” he said.

“It’s Fives. I’m Fives.” He gave a weak smile. “I can’t believe I made it.” No wonder Leon couldn’t recognize him. Fives had shaved his head, and his armor was plain white, missing the signature blue paint he remembered.

“Fives?” Gwaine stepped forward. “Fives, mate, you look like hell.”

“What happened to you?” Percival asked.

Leon finally recognized the look in Fives’ face. “Who’s after you?” That kind of panic only came from being hunted.

Gwaine glanced briefly at him, then turned to look at Fives. “Is someone after you?”

Fives shook his head urgently. “No, no, no. Well--yes, technically. But they don’t know where I am.”

“What do you mean, ‘no, yes, technically?’”

Leon was liking this less and less the more heard about it. Whatever had happened to get Fives into this state, it had been awful. He remembered Fives. He had been confident, almost cocky--he’d been a lot like Gwaine, from what he remembered. Now, he was jumpy, he was erratic, and apparently, he was now the subject of some kind of manhunt.

“Fives, are you alright?” Percival asked, sharing Leon’s concern.

“When was the last time you slept?” Leon asked. If he had to guess, some time last week wasn’t far off.

“That doesn’t matter,” Fives insisted, shaking his head. “Listen, there’s something wrong--not with me, not anymore. But it’s not just me. It’s all of us! All the clones, they’re controlling us--they can tell us what to do. I swear, I’m telling the truth, I know it. They don’t want you to know it. I mean, they don’t want me to know it. They don’t want anyone to know it.”

Something was very wrong. Gwaine reached a hand out towards Fives’ shoulder. “Fives, mate, take a breath.”

Fives jerked away from his hand. “I don’t have time--! You don’t understand! He's gonna kill us all!”

“Alright, alright, we get it,” Percival said, keeping his voice calm. Percival had a way of easing tensions that Leon had to respect. Despite being huge, he could talk almost anyone down. “We get it, Fives, we do. But, remember we don’t live in the same world you do, right? You need to slow down for us, Fives. We want to help, but you need to take a breath and slow down.”

It worked. Fives hesitated instead of rambling on again, and his breathing gradually slowed from its panicked rhythm. The urgency in his eyes faded, replaced by a glimpse of pain. His shoulders sagged, and his eyes focused on some spot over Gwaine’s shoulder. The sheer stress that had been propelling him for who knew how long was finally receding, and leaving behind the remnants of what had happened. At length, he blinked and tried to speak, but failed. His lips moved, but it was as if his mind couldn’t decide which words to form.

“It’s alright,” Percival said. “Take your time.”

After a long while, Fives finally managed to speak. “Tup’s gone.”

The words fell heavily into the silence around them. Leon was suddenly acutely aware that there were only three of them out here. Elyan should be with them, by their side, instead of resting with the other fallen knights in the Lake of Avalon.

“I thought I saved him,” Fives said further, his voice losing strength with each word. He sat down suddenly, looking utterly exhausted. Without a word, Leon and the others knelt on the ground with him. “How am I supposed to do anything? I’m just one person. I’m a clone. No one even listens to clones.”

“Well, we don’t really know any better,” Gwaine said. “I guess we’ll listen.”

Fives looked up at him. “I guess.”

“You look like a dead man walking,” Leon said, standing up.

“I am.”

Leon had to agree with that. “I meant you need some rest, Fives. Come on, you’re coming with us.” He offered a hand to him.

Fives took it and got to his feet. “Thank you.”

“Hey, we get it,” Gwaine said. “Not everything, but… if you hadn’t noticed, there’s only three of us out here.”

Fives looked around--he hadn’t noticed. He dipped his chin. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

After a pause, Gwaine put a cautious hand on Fives’ shoulder. He didn’t flinch back this time. “Come on. Let’s get you to a bed.”

* * *

The ride back was silent; no one was in any mood to speak. Luckily, it was a short ride, and they were soon walking back through the gates of the courtyard. It was still the dead of night, despite the time they had spent out there, and the castle windows were largely still dark. A groom was waiting for them, and two more hurried to meet the three horses at the bottom of the stairs to take care of them. After a few moments, Merlin emerged from the castle.

Leon beckoned him over after dismounting. “Merlin, would you check if there are any empty rooms near either mine or Gwaine and Percival’s?”

“Of course, why?”

“We have a guest,” he answered, looking to where Fives stood with Gwaine and Percival.

“Who is he?”

“Fives.”

“You’re kidding.”

Leon shook his head. “But he’s been through a hell of a lot.” Merlin nodded, taking another look at the clone before returning into the castle. Leon stayed put for the other three to join him. “I’ve sent Merlin to find a room for you,” he told Fives, who nodded dumbly.

They walked slowly up the stairs and into the quiet castle. Even the morning hustle and bustle of staff hadn’t started yet, and the only light came from torches and candles along the walls. After a short wait, Merlin came hurrying back.

“Hey, I found a room a few doors down from Percival and Gwaine, does that work?”

“Yes, that’s fine,” Leon answered. “Thank you, Merlin.”

The three knights escorted Fives up through the castle to the hall, pausing to point out Gwaine and Percival’s rooms. They arrived at the empty room and Leon pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Here we are.” It was just like the other rooms in the hall: one bed, one desk, one chair, the wardrobe in the corner, and an armor stand for chain mail. The candles had been lit already, the washstand was supplied, and the bed was perfectly made. “Is there anything else you need right now?” he asked. “Something to eat, fresh clothes…?”

Fives finished his initial inspection of the room. “I guess clothes would be nice. I’d like to get out of this armor,” he said, glancing over his body.

“Of course,” Leon nodded.

“I’ll get you something,” Gwaine offered. “You’re closer to my size than his, and I don’t think you want something out of Percy’s closet,” he said with a smile, poking Percival’s bare arm.

A corner of Fives’ mouth twitched up briefly. “Thanks.”

“We’ll be back in a bit,” Percival said, then Leon pulled the door shut as quietly as he could.

Leon waited until they were a ways down the hall before saying, “So… what are we actually going to do?”

Gwaine shrugged heavily. “I have no idea. The man’s a wreck, clearly.”

“But he knows something,” Percival pointed out. He and Leon waited outside Gwaine’s door while he grabbed some clothes out of his wardrobe. “He’s not mad.”

“If he's not mad, then what the hell?” Gwaine asked.

“He’s in pain,” Percival said. “I don’t blame him. When we saw him last, he was with seven other clones. His brothers. Now he’s alone, and we only know what happened to one of them. For all we know, the rest are gone too.”

“And he’s on the run,” Leon recalled, making very clear the absurdity of the situation. “But from whom? The entire army? What's so dangerous that he needed to come all the way out here to escape?”

Gwaine returned, holding a bundle of clothes. “I’ve no idea, but whatever it is, we’re not gonna ask him about it until he gets some sleep. Agreed?”

Leon and Percival nodded. “Agreed.”

They returned to Fives’ room, only waiting a few seconds after knocking before the door opened. Gwaine held out the clothes. “There’s some things for tonight. We can get you more tomorrow, if you need.”

“And if you need anything else in the meantime, just knock,” Percival added. “You know where our rooms are.”

Fives took the clothes. He hesitated at the door, conflicted by something. At length, he looked at them and asked, “Do you think I’m crazy?”

The knights looked at each other. Leon shook his head. “No. We don’t.”

“You’re sleep-deprived and stressed as all hell,” Percival said. “And you just lost a brother. But you’re not crazy.”

He pressed his lips together, his gaze falling. “Good night,” he said quietly, and closed the door gently.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Would you like some feels? The answer is yes, you clicked on the chapter.

Fives remained by the door and listened until he knew the knights were gone. His life still felt like a dream to him. Or a nightmare. And his head still ached every once in a while. He moved slowly, laying the clothes out on the bed mechanically, not really paying attention to them. It was the same removing the shiny white armor and setting it out on the floor, his hands moving to arrange it the way he had been taught. The trance was broken only after he had peeled off the top half of his blacks and reached for the shirt laid out in front of him.

It was blue.

It wasn’t  _ that _ blue. But his mind flinched at the color nonetheless. He was technically a deserter. He was a criminal. Even if he somehow magically succeeded in… whatever it was he was supposed to do, that wouldn’t change. He would never be allowed to wear 501st blue again. He might never see his battalion again.

He forced the thought from his mind, shoving it into the box ARC training had built for him to deal with later, and finished changing quickly, hanging the blacks on the armor stand. That box of his was getting a little too full for his liking. He used to empty it every once in a while, to Echo mostly. After Echo’s death, he’d tried to work with Rex, but the captain was so busy, and Fives would never consider opening that box to his other squad members. He was the ARC. He was the one they came to talk to, not the other way around.

What had he done? He had all but abandoned them, and for what? The idea that he, one clone among billions, could somehow find alternative proof that the Kaminoans had implanted these chips into their brains? And then proving the Chancellor was part of the whole thing? How? It was impossible.

Sitting down gingerly on the bed, Fives finally became aware of just how quiet it was. It wasn’t foreboding or eerie, but it was complete. He was alone. He wasn’t used to being alone like this, having grown up and served alongside his brothers as far back as he could remember. There was always at least the faint chatter of voices, or the sound of someone else’s breathing, even when no one spoke. But here, in this room, it was just… silent. He didn’t like it. He scooted farther back on the bed, sitting against the headboard, feeling a little better with a wall at his back and a view of the door, but it was still so quiet.

Despite his discomfort, a wave of fatigue that had been building since leaving Ringo Vinda finally broke over him, after days of pushing it off. Leon had asked when he’d last slept, and Fives was pretty sure that had been the night before arriving at that planet. The drugged state he’d been in from Kamino to Coruscant didn’t count as rest. He was drained, mentally, physically, and emotionally, yet he couldn’t relax here, not when it was so quiet. He curled up, wrapping his arms around himself and drawing his knees to his chest in efforts to ease his discomfort, but it did little. He needed his brothers.

But he also needed sleep, he knew. After Echo died, the charge of rounding up the younger ones and making them sleep before a battle had fallen to Fives and Jesse, and he needed a taste of his own medicine right about now. He closed his eyes, forcing his mind back into that state.

“Okay, trooper, fun time’s over,” he muttered to himself, rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands. His head was killing him. “Big day tomorrow,” he went on quietly. “The captain needs you at your best, and that means sleep.”

The captain. What would Rex think when the news reached him? It already had, no doubt. Fives couldn’t imagine. The last words Rex had given him were, “Take care of yourself, trooper. And Tup.” And the next thing he would have heard was the news of Fives’ alleged assassination attempt on the Chancellor, and the manhunt, and his escape. And Tup’s death. Force, what a mess he’d made for Rex.

“That’s not gonna help you sleep,” he told himself, massaging his temples. The throbbing in his head was only getting steadily worse, and it was worrying him. Actually, he was far past the stage of worry and well into dull panic. What if there was a complication with the removal? What if he went to sleep and never woke up? Who would carry on the mission? He could feel his heart start to race again. He had just calmed down…

His stomach growled. Oh… right. He hadn’t eaten since the ration bar he’d inhaled sometime before going after Tup’s captors. That might have something to do with his headache. In all the stress, he’d flatly forgotten about food, but as he looked around, there was none in sight. He could ask one of the knights, but he was so tired he could barely move, and he didn’t want to bother them. Instead, he redoubled his efforts to relax and get some sleep.

After poking and prodding the mattress, he knew it would be too soft for him to sleep on. It felt like he was sinking into it just sitting here, so there was no way he could sleep on it. The pillows were ten times softer than the bricks he’d grown up on, but he could work with those. He got down from the bed, carefully untucked the thick quilt from the mattress, and folded it in half to lay it on the floor with one of the flatter pillows. After grabbing a second blanket from the bed, he sat down on his makeshift mattress to organize himself.

His hands were shaking.

The motion was slight, but it was there. The last time he’d been like this had been after Umbara, that hellhole. He squeezed his fists as hard as he could, embracing the pain when his nails pressed into the flesh of his palms. It helped remind him that he was alive, that he had other brothers to fight for, but it wasn’t working this time. He felt so alone and so confused that all he could think of was how much he wanted to be back with his company right now. They should be together, mourning Tup as a family, huddled in a group by his empty bunk on the  _ Resolute _ , just like they had for Echo and Hardcase and Dogma, and what the rest of them had no doubt done for Fives after Rex had told them what had happened. Or what he had been told. Fives suspected the real story would never see the light of day.

Fives relaxed his fists, giving up on that tactic. He drew a ragged breath and closed his eyes. Something wet hit his hand, and he looked down.

No. ARCs didn’t… they weren’t allowed to. But when he brushed his shaky fingertips across his cheek, they came back glistening with tears.

Using the cuffs of his shirt, he wiped his face angrily. “No, no, no, hold it together, trooper,” he growled. He didn’t know why he was suddenly angry. He got to his feet and started pacing in front of the bed, back and forth across the stone floor.

“Clear head, trooper, clear head,” he muttered, desperate to fill the silence around him. “Come on, Fives, get it together.”

_ Go to sleep, Fives. _

“I’m trying!”

_ You’re pacing. That’s not trying. Calm down. _

“Calm down? That’s all you’ve got?”

_ Fives, you just had your whole life torn apart in a matter of days. You’re allowed to feel like  _ osik _. _

Fives screwed his eyes shut and kept pacing, not noticing how hard his heels slammed into the stone floor. “We’re ARCs--”

_ You’re a deserter. And you’re talking to me. Again…  _

“If I go to sleep, you go away,” Fives said, finally stopping, holding his head in his hands. “I need you, Echo.”

_ I’m already gone, Fives, you know that. Go to sleep. _

Almost against his will, Fives dragged himself back to the blankets and pillow on the floor and sat down heavily, leaning against the bed next to him. This time, he felt the tears start to slide down his face, and he let them. Dimly, he realized he hadn’t let himself cry over losing his last batchmate yet, despite it happening over a year ago. There had been sleepless nights, midnight bouts with training dummies, numbness that lasted for days on end, but no tears. ARCs didn’t cry. But he wasn’t an ARC anymore, and he missed his brother. He lay down, curled up as tightly as he could, and, for the first time in his life, he cried himself to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knights get a crash course in the Clone Wars, and they are not happy about any of it.

The three knights had all agreed on using their free time in the day to keep an eye on Fives. They checked in every hour, and Gwaine was on duty for the next couple hours until he and Leon had to run afternoon training. It was a little after noon, and Fives was still sound asleep on the floor in the makeshift bed he had created for himself. No one was surprised he had slept for over twelve hours now--not after the state in which he had arrived last night. Gwaine had brought the last of his lunch up to the room, and he pulled up the chair at the desk to finish it. Fives wouldn’t mind. He was asleep.

Gwaine finished his lunch and sat for a moment. Percival and Leon usually grabbed a book to pass the time, but Gwaine wasn’t big on reading. He did know how, finally, after Percival and Leon had worked with him over the past few months, but reading for fun wasn’t something he understood. His eyes landed on Fives’ armor laid out on the ground by the armor stand. Curious, he stood and walked over to it, picking up a gauntlet to examine it.

The white material was remarkably light, considering its thickness. The surface was smooth and unblemished from combat, which was unusual for someone of Fives’ experience. Obviously, this wasn’t his armor, but now Gwaine was curious about how Fives had gotten his hands on pristine armor like this. He set the gauntlet down exactly as he had found it. Looking over the full set, Gwaine was glad he was stuck with just chain mail and plate armor down one arm. This stuff looked ridiculously uncomfortable.

A noise drew his attention over to Fives. He was muttering to himself in his sleep again. Percival had reported it first, when he went to check early that morning. None of them could hear any words in the mumblings, and if it was a new language, no one had any hope of understanding it.

Gwaine stood up and took a step closer, not sure if he should stay or leave. He had no issues traipsing into Percival or Leon’s rooms any hour of the day or night because he’d lived years with them, but he barely knew Fives. It felt a little invasive. After a few moments, the muttering subsided, and Gwaine decided he had spent enough time here. He turned to leave, but as he was closing the door, he caught sight of Fives sitting up slowly.

“Hey,” he said, stepping back into the room. “How do you feel?”

Fives rubbed the back of his neck, looking around at the room. “Uh… good.”

“Remember where you are?”

He nodded. “Camelot.” After a pause, he asked, “How long was I asleep?”

“Twelve hours or so,” Gwaine answered. “Not really surprising. You needed it.” Fives nodded silently. “You want something to eat?”

“I’m kriffing starving,” Fives said. He sounded a lot better than he had last night.

Gwaine smiled. “Now you’re speaking my language. You wanna wait here, and I’ll bring something up?”

Fives got to his feet. “Actually, I’d like to come with you, if that’s okay. I need a walk.”

“What is ‘okay?’” Gwaine had to ask.

The clone blinked at him. “It’s--well, it um… It means ‘alright.’”

“Ah,” Gwaine nodded. “Got it. Yeah, come on, I’ll get you some boots. Can’t have you walking around the castle in stockings, can I?”

“Thanks,” Fives replied with a faint smile. “Although, these are the best socks I think I’ve ever worn. Regulation socks are kriffing garbage. They wear out in a month.”

Gwaine opened the door and beckoned for him to follow. He had an extra pair of boots in his room he could do without. “Alright, now what’s ‘kriffing?’”

Fives shrugged. “It’s a curse. Doesn’t really mean anything specific. You can use it however you want.”

That was familiar. “We have fuck. Same kinda thing.” He ducked into his room and grabbed the boots from his closet to give to Fives. “If they work for you, keep ‘em.”

Fives pulled them on and wiggled his feet in them before nodding. “Yeah, they work.”

Now that he was out of his armor, Fives drew far less attention from the people around them, and while he was walking with Gwaine, no one really noticed him. Most people were too busy to look anyway, bustling back and forth in their daily routines. “So, why did you come here?” Gwaine asked. He was genuinely curious. “Why Camelot?”

“Not many people know your planet exists,” Fives answered. “It’s in part of the galaxy called Wild Space, and no one really bothers with it. It’s also on the other side of the galaxy from Coruscant.”

“Which is…?”

“The capital of the Republic. Where I escaped from.”

“Ah, I see. Lucky you to have dropped by a year ago, then, eh?” When Fives didn’t reply, he glanced over and saw the apprehension in his face. “Maybe lucky’s the wrong word,” he amended.

“Maybe it is.”

When they arrived at the castle kitchens, Gwaine was very careful to stay just behind the threshold to protect against the head cook’s wrath. Sure enough, as soon as word got around to her, Frances grabbed a ladle and marched over.

“Sir Gwaine, lunch has already been served, so you’d better have a good reason to be here,” she glowered, pointing her ladle in his face.

Gwaine gave her what he hoped was a charming smile. “Frances, my lady, I always have good reasons to be here. In this case, it happens to be my friend here,” he said, putting a hand on Fives’ shoulder. “He’s a guest, and he hasn’t eaten yet today, and I know you’re not a woman to turn away hungry guests.”

Frances eyed them both, but she lowered her ladle. “Fine,” she relented. “But stay there. I don’t want your boots moving an inch, Sir Knight!” She gave him one last glare before marching back into her domain.

“I remember her,” Fives remarked. Last time, he and his brother Echo had distracted the head cook while Gwaine and Percival stole treats behind her back. Frances was hard to forget.

“Good thing she doesn’t remember you,” Gwaine said.

A corner of his mouth moved up for a moment, but it was clear Fives wasn’t entirely paying attention to the present conversation. Gwaine recognized the look. He’d seen it in Percival after Lancelot’s death, and more recently in the queen as she mourned her brother still. Some of the knights had a name for it: they called it the Spirit Stare, because it was like the person was staring through the veil between the worlds at the spirits of their dead companions. Gwaine didn’t call it that. He called it grief.

“Hey,” he said, tapping Fives’ arm gently to pull him back to the present. “After you’ve eaten, do you think you could explain some of what’s going on? Just to the three of us.”

“Oh, yeah.” Fives nodded. “Yeah, I probably wasn’t making much sense last night, was I?” He gave a wry smile.

Gwaine shrugged. “Not really. Just a lot of ‘everyone’s gonna die’ type thing.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Hey, no apologizing for what comes out of your mouth when you’re running on no sleep and pure stress,” he told him. “I don’t blame you for not making a whole lot of sense.”

Frances returned with a tray carrying a bowl of oatmeal, an apple, and a small scone with jam and cream. She offered her usual sour expression towards Gwaine as she handed the tray to Fives, never once taking her eyes off the knight. “There. Enjoy it.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Fives replied without thought.

Gwaine threw one last smile in Frances’ direction and received a glare for his troubles. “Come on,” he said with a grin, “let’s head back. I’ll grab Percival on the way. Leon will be back from patrol in a few minutes.”

* * *

Within half an hour, the three knights were gathered in Fives’ room, waiting patiently for Fives to be ready to talk about what had happened. Leon ate lunch with him, having missed the meal out on patrol, while filling in the other knights on the week’s schedule.

Once they were both finished with their meals, Fives remarked, “That was probably the best breakfast I’ve ever had.”

Gwaine tipped his chin at the untouched scone on the tray. “Something wrong with that?”

Fives glanced at it, a flicker of guilt passing over his face.

“Don’t eat it if you don’t want it.”

He turned his attention to Percival. “You were the one with siblings, right?”

Percival nodded. “Yeah, I grew up with three of them.”

“But they’re gone.”

“Yeah.” It was odd to hear about Percival’s family, because it was one thing that even Gwaine didn’t feel comfortable asking about. It wasn’t because Percival didn’t like talking about them, but Gwaine didn’t know how to address the subject. He’d never lost someone like that.

But Fives had. “How long…” He paused, choosing his words. “How long until you could live without them?”

Percival tilted his head, rubbing his chin with the back of his knuckles while he thought. “Well… I guess that depends on how you define ‘living’ without them. For me, it was two months before I could talk--at all, I mean. I was still in shock, I guess. I’d never experienced death like that before. It was another… four months or so before I could think or talk about them without wanting to punch something. But the guilt of being the only one left? That guilt’s the last thing to go. Took me a year to even start getting over it.”

Fives nodded, absorbing the information. “A whole year?”

Percival shrugged. “Everyone’s different.”

There was a long silence afterwards. Fives seemed to be debating what to say or how much to tell them. Finally, he said, “Look, I don’t know how much of what I’m going to tell you will make sense to you. But I have to tell someone.”

Gwaine nodded along with Percival and Leon. “Of course. We’re here to listen, mate.”

“Okay,” he said. He hesitated for a moment. “Force, where do I start?” After another moment of conflict, he settled on a starting point. “I’ll start with the war. Not the specifics, those are boring as all nine hells, and I didn’t pay attention to know them well enough anyway. But, the two sides are the Republic and the Separatists.”

Slowly and taking as many questions as the knights had, Fives explained the enormous conflict he and his brothers had been made to fight. It was a lot to take in. The clones were probably the strangest part of it, in Gwaine’s opinion. The idea of creating special-made soldiers for a war was so far from what he believed in. These men weren’t given a choice to fight--they were built for it. The vocabulary was also a challenge. The Republic, the Senate, a Chancellor--and those were the easier words. Kamino, Sith, droids, Jedi--he had no idea.

Fives paused, looking at the knights carefully. “Have I lost any of you?”

Leon shook his head. “No.”

“What?” Percival and Gwaine stared openly at him.

“How?” Gwaine demanded.

“Just don’t think too hard about it,” Leon replied. “It’s a war: there’s two sides, one with men, one with machines. Kaminoans make the clones for the Chancellor, and the droids fight for the Sith. Separatists.”

Even Fives looked impressed by his breakdown. “I mean, that is basically it.”

“So what did you discover that everyone wants you dead for?” Leon inquired. Gwaine shook his head and turned back to the clone. Leon had been a knight since birth, and it showed.

Fives took a breath. This was where the bad stuff started, Gwaine could tell. “It started with Tup. During the last battle we fought, he lost it--I mean literally lost his mind--and executed a Jedi general. But when he came back to himself, he had no idea what he’d done--no memory whatsoever. So, he was sent back to Kamino to be assessed, and I went with him to… I was supposed to keep an eye on him.” He paused for a moment, no doubt wrestling with the guilt of Tup’s fate. “What was even weirder was when the Separatists tried to capture him on the way. He was one injured soldier leaving on a medical transport. Why did they want him? It didn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, I’ll say,” Gwaine said. “Who captures a man down as he’s leaving the battlefield?”

“What was wrong with him?” Percival asked. It was probably the better question to answer.

“Long story short, they found a tumor in Tup’s brain, which was odd, because we’re not supposed to be able to develop tumors. The Kaminoans wanted to terminate him and dissect his brain. And… that just didn’t sit right with me.”

“Obviously,” Leon said to no one in particular.

“So, I broke way too many protocols and regulations, and I helped a medical droid take it out of him without killing him. At least, I tried not to kill him.” His gaze dropped to the tabletop in front of him. “I failed. But he was free. The last thing he said, he was free.”

“Free of what?” Gwaine asked.

“That’s what I wondered.”

He launched into the second part of his story, where he snuck around Kamino in disguise, delving into the secrets being kept from the Republic by the Kaminoan doctors. The tumor was an inhibitor chip, implanted before birth in every single clone coming off Kamino. Tup’s had malfunctioned, revealing the sinister nature of the chips hiding beneath the surface. Fives had his removed as well, explaining why his head was shaved, but he had been caught, and he and both chips were sent to Coruscant to the Chancellor--the leader of the Republic--to explain himself.

“And that’s when everything went wrong,” Fives said.

“Wait… _that’s_ when?” Gwaine had to ask.

“Yeah, not when Tup died, and you figured out the Kamino people were hiding secrets about your brains?” Percival added.

Fives gave a wry smile. “Yeah. I know, it doesn’t seem possible. But… it did. So, I knew the chips were in all the clones, and I wasn’t convinced by the Kaminoans’ claim that they were just to make us less aggressive and more obedient. I still don’t know what exactly they’re for. But what’s worse is how far up the chain of command the conspiracy goes.”

The knights held a beat of tense silence. Fives’ story had completely captivated them.

“It goes all the way up. Right to the Chancellor himself.”

“No,” Percival said softly, barely believing it.

Gwaine’s reaction was a little more passionate. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“How did you find out?” Leon wanted to know.

Fives’ face hardened, and his hands curled into fists on the table. “He told me. He asked to speak to me alone, and he told me.”

“Why?” Gwaine asked.

“He didn’t plan on you escaping,” Percival answered.

Fives shook his head in confirmation. “Exactly. After I escaped, he had me charged with an assassination attempt and sent the entire Coruscant Guard to take me down.” He sighed. “The Guard is made up of clones. He sent my own brothers after me.”

The knights had nothing to say to that. It did vaguely remind Gwaine of the day Elyan had been possessed by something and had tried to kill Arthur. The knights had chased him through the castle until they cornered him, and Percival talked him down.

“So how did you get away?” Leon asked.

A small gleam of triumph flickered to life in Fives’ face. “Coruscant’s huge. It’s an entire planet of a city. Hundreds of thousands of ships enter and leave each day, but they can’t track them all.”

Gwaine gave a small nod, admittedly impressed. “So how long have you been on the run?”

“Four days or so. I came straight here.”

“You remembered where we were after over a year?” That was even more impressive. “Damn.”

“Hey, I wasn’t made ARC for nothing,” Fives said with half a smile. Gwaine glanced at the knights, seeing his own confusion on their faces. Fives quickly filled them in. “ARC troopers. Stands for Advanced Recon Commando. We’re trained to be extra smart, extra tough—that sort of thing.”

“That’s why you and Echo had different armor than the rest,” Leon said. Gwaine remembered it now, too.

Fives looked at them, a shadow passing over his face. It was gone quickly, and he nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, the pauldrons and the kama. The fabric over our legs. Yeah.”

The change didn’t escape any of the knights, but they left it alone for now. Gwaine couldn’t tell if the reaction was because Fives had left his company so abruptly and missed his brother, or if something worse had happened to Echo. That was a delicate conversation, and he knew he wasn’t the right person to start it.

Instead, Leon said, “Gwaine and I run afternoon training in a little bit. Do you want to join? I know training helps a lot of the men if they’re going through something.”

Fives perked up at the mention of training. “I’d really like that, yeah.”

“Good,” Leon smiled. “We’ll head down soon to start setting up.”


	4. Chapter 4

The armory was just as Fives remembered it. The main difference now was the amount of people there. Last time, there had been no training that day, so the stone chamber had been empty. Today, however, just before afternoon training, it was bustling. He did his best to stay out of the way, sticking to a back corner of the room while the knights prepared themselves. The twinge of homesickness was hard to ignore as he listened to them laugh at each other’s jokes and poke fun at each other, just like he and his brothers did. He could instantly tell the more experienced knights from the younger ones, even if they looked the same age. It was all so achingly familiar.

As the knights started to file out onto the training green, Gwaine came over to him, holding a pair of wooden staffs. “Still with us, Fives?” he asked.

Fives blinked and nodded. “Yeah.”

Gwaine had to have noticed he wasn’t quite right, but he didn’t say anything else on the subject, and Fives was grateful for that. He didn’t want to talk about it. Instead, the knight handed over one of the staffs. “Today’s quarterstaff. You ever used one?”

Fives hefted the staff, examining it briefly. “I’ve used a big stick to hit things,” he answered. Found weapons were always an option in battle.

“So you’ve used one,” Gwaine smiled. “C’mon.” He led the way onto the green, taking up a place at the back of the rows of knights. Leon was already starting. “I usually stick to the back,” Gwaine explained quietly while Leon spoke. “I keep the boys back here from falling asleep or passing notes.”

The mental image of the men trying to pass notes during training did make Fives smile slightly. He briefly tried to imagine how he could pull it off during physicals with Rex, but he knew that was a black hole into memories he didn’t want right now, so he pulled himself back and focused his attention on Leon in the front.

Even if the weapon was unfamiliar, the structure and rhythm of training was an enormous relief to Fives’ mind. Besides, he was a bred fighter, designed to adapt to new situations, so getting a grasp on using the quarterstaff wasn’t difficult. The basics always stayed the same with any contact fighting: keep a wide base, low center, and fluid motions. Leon ran through several drills of offensive and defensive combinations, and it looked like the knights were already familiar with them all, following his prompts swiftly and confidently. Fives did his best, but he was always a second behind. He didn’t mind, although he might have before. He was just grateful to focus on something that wasn’t his life falling apart.

Eventually, Leon told the men to pair off for sparring to put in practice what they’d been learning for the past hour and a bit. As the knights shuffled around, Gwaine got Fives’ attention by poking his side with the end of his quarterstaff.

“Shall we see what you’ve learned?” he asked, turning to face him.

The memory of Hardcase sparring Percival and getting his ass handed to him surfaced in Fives’ mind for a moment, but he pushed it aside and nodded. “Sure.” He adjusted his grip on his staff, setting his feet apart.

“Can’t promise I’ll go easy,” Gwaine warned with a small grin.

“Wouldn’t want you to.”

Fives was a fast learner--he had to be--but he almost impressed himself with how much of the lessons he remembered while Gwaine was trying to trip him up every chance he got. Sometimes literally. He was on the defensive for most of it, his feet moving back more than forward, but he could manage to block or evade most of the strikes. A few bruises were nothing to him after years of sparring hand-to-hand with his brothers. No one went easy in the GAR.

“You’re not too bad,” Gwaine remarked before striking three times in quick succession, the last one catching Fives’ shin after he parried the first two.

“Pretty sure I’m a natural,” Fives joked, grateful for the leather boots covering his lower legs.

Eventually, the knight’s superior skill had to win out. Fives was backed almost up to the low stone wall around the training green, his mind working overtime to read and try to parry or avoid Gwaine’s attacks, and his opponent knew it. In the midst of his concentration, he miscalculated, moving to parry an attack that never connected and disturbing his balance. Naturally, Gwaine took the advantage, stepping forward to place one foot directly behind Fives’ and levering his body weight against him. Fives was dismayed to remember that grass was not nearly as soft as GAR training mats.

But he sat up quickly, still buzzing from adrenaline and feeling better than he had in days, even if he had lost.

“You alright?” Gwaine asked, offering a hand to him.

Fives nodded, accepting the help to stand up. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He grabbed his staff from where it had fallen from his hand. “I needed that, thanks.”

“No problem,” the knight replied. “Who knows, you might actually learn a few things while you’re here. However long that is.”

He hadn’t really given much thought to how long he would need to lay low. Obviously, the Republic would be searching everywhere for him, but he was one clone--albeit with dangerous information. Eventually, the resources would dry up for the full-scale manhunt, and that might be enough for Fives to slip by the search. However, he didn’t know how long that would take. So he shrugged, wiping a trickle of sweat off his face. “Yeah, maybe.”

“You are gonna go back, though, aren’t you?” Gwaine asked, returning closer to the other knights. Fives recalled he was technically on duty right now.

“I have to,” he nodded. “I have to at least try.”

“Yeah, I get that. Didn’t used to, but… I do now.”

That was a curious response. “What do you mean?”

Gwaine hesitated, pulling his thoughts together before explaining. “Well, the whole concept of loyalty--to anyone--I was a bit of a late bloomer, you might say.” He frowned slightly. “I just didn’t have anyone to be loyal to before Camelot.”

“How is that possible?” In clone culture, loyalty meant everything. Loyalty to the Republic, to your battalion, to your officers, to your squad, to your brothers--it was the fabric holding everything together. The concept of having no loyalties outside of yourself was something Fives could barely understand.

A small and insincere smile appeared on Gwaine’s face. “That’s what happens when life deals you a bad hand. You tend not to trust anyone but yourself with the cards.”

* * *

Fives developed a routine within a few days, mostly out of habit from living solely in the GAR system. It was difficult, however, with this planet’s lack of technology. There was no electricity, which meant no devices, which meant waking up at the same time everyday was the hardest part of setting up a routine. He was amazed that all the staff and the knights managed to start each day at the same time over and over again without chronos, or at least a commanding officer with one.

He met with the king on his second day there and did his best to explain the gist of what had happened. The king seemed more wary than the knights at the prospect of hosting the subject of a galaxy-wide manhunt, and Fives understood that. He had his kingdom to think of first. However, he trusted his knights, and they remained the overseers of his stay in Camelot, for which Fives was grateful. They seemed to understand.

Sleep remained difficult. Fives made efforts to spend as little time in his room as possible, avoiding the clinging silence of the empty space. He finally figured out he could open the windows in his room to let in some noise, but it did nothing against the nightmares that woke him up almost every night. They weren’t anything new to him: all clones had nightmares. Fives remembered waking up on Kamino as a cadet from visions of blaster fire he had never experienced. But it felt like they hurt more now that he was alone. Every clone knew that the best remedy for nightmares was a brother to hold onto, as an anchor in the night.

After Umbara, for one hell of an example, everyone was so shaken up that Jesse and Fives pulled over half of Torrent Company’s mattresses off the bunks and made one giant sleeping pad in the middle of the company’s section in the barracks so everyone could sleep together. Technically, it violated a couple regs about keeping a neat space or whatever, but when Rex had walked by and had seen what Fives and Jesse were doing, he’d kept quiet about it. And Dogma hadn’t been there to complain.

But here, in Camelot, Fives didn’t have that. He didn’t have brothers he could crawl under a blanket with when his mind turned against him, and that hurt. During the day, he could ignore it, distracting himself with training or exploring the castle, but in the middle of the night, when the only noises from outside the windows were wind and the occasional bird call, he was defenseless. Thankfully, if the knights noticed his lack of sleep, they didn’t say anything about it.

In the free time he had between training and meals, he had gotten his hands on several sheets of flimsi--it was called paper here--and writing implements. The writing tools were a mess. Quill and ink or literally a burnt stick. Why couldn’t this planet at least have invented something resembling a stylus?

The ink all over his fingers was hard to miss.

“What’ve you been writing?” Percival asked when he noticed after morning training the next day. He and Fives had to stay behind in the armory to make sure the knights put everything away properly. He wasn’t really paying much attention, because the morning session had been a smaller group of some of the more senior knights, a lot of them older than Percival. He knew they would put their things back properly. The king himself had led training, which had been a break from Leon or Percival. Fives had never seen the king fight before, and he couldn’t be anything other than impressed.

“Not much, considering the tools I’ve got,” Fives answered, not bothering to hide much of his displeasure.

The knight smirked. “Yeah, I felt the same way when I was learning. Do you want some help with it?”

“It would speed things up, that’s for sure.”

“Can I ask what you’re trying to write?” Percival inquired.

“Eh, just plans.” He had tried to draw a Galactic Map, but it had ended up looking more like a sad oil leak with all the ink splots.

Percival nodded. “Yeah, if you want a pointer or two on using those damn quills, I’d be more than happy. Or Leon--he taught me.”

“Thanks.”

The king and Leon finally returned to the armory, although they were in discussion. The way Fives parsed it, if the king was someone like a general, Leon was his commander, his right hand man. They reminded him slightly of General Kenobi and Commander Cody, but that was probably just because the king’s accent was so similar to Kenobi’s--Coruscanti, almost. There were definitely no rumors flying around about their “professional relationship,” and the same could not be said for General Kenobi and his commander.

To Fives’ surprise, when the king approached, he paused his conversation with Leon to greet him. “You’re good,” he said with a smile. “Whatever it is they’re doing out there to train you, they’re doing a damn good job.”

“Thank you, sir,” Fives replied habitually, although the praise was odd coming from an authority figure outside of the GAR.

“You really haven’t used these kinds of weapons before?”

He shrugged minutely. “Weapons are weapons, sir. I learn fast.”

The king nodded his agreement. “It’s quite impressive. Stick around for too long, I might have to enlist you,” he smiled, punching Fives’ shoulder lightly before he left for the castle.

Fives didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just watched the king until he disappeared among the stone pillars of the armory. Finally, he said, “This is one of the weirdest planets I’ve ever been on.”

The two knights looked at him. “Why?” Leon asked.

“Is the grass a different color where you’re from?” Percival joked.

“There is no grass where clones come from. Kamino’s an entirely ocean planet.”

After a short pause, Leon said, “What?”

“It’s one giant ocean over the whole planet,” Fives explained. “The cloning facilities are built above the surface. Keeps the invasion attempts down to a minimum.”

“I hate that.” Leon looked to Percival. “I actually hate that.”

Percival smiled and shook his head. “Leon here doesn’t like the ocean.”

“It’s too big, and we have no idea what’s in it aside from fish and very large whales,” Leon countered immediately. “I have every right not to trust it.”

“You’ll probably live longer that way,” Fives said. He had a feeling that telling Leon about some of the creatures on Kamino alone would just make things worse.

“Right, but for real, why is this place weird?” Percival wanted to know.

“Well, aside from the obvious lack of technology for an intelligent race,” he answered, following as Leon led them out of the armory, “you treat clones a lot better than most people do. I’m just not quite used to it.”

The two knights gave him odd glances as they walked. “Better?” Leon repeated.

“How do most people treat you?” Percival asked, his brows drawn together in concern as well as curiosity.

Fives thought back to the incidents he alone had encountered, and shrugged, playing down the reality of the situation. The knights didn’t need to know. “Eh, just… not good. It’s why most of us don’t interact much with people outside the GAR--civvies, we call ‘em.”

“Aren’t you the ones protecting them from the Separatists, though?” Percival pointed out, sounding unknowingly shiny.

“War always has collateral damage,” Leon replied, sounding more and more like a CC by the second, which was a little unnerving. “People blame the clones for the destruction, don’t they?”

Fives nodded. “More often than not. They know when clones show up, the Seps aren’t far behind, and that never means anything good.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you're all enjoying some weird culture clash here, I know I'm enjoying writing it. Thanks to everyone reading and leaving kudos--it makes me smile!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gwaine is a little too willing to execute the head of a governing body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BBC Merlin: *gives knights no backstory*  
> Me: It's free real-estate.

Percival and Leon had some free time before dinner, so Leon offered to give Fives a short writing lesson, which was readily accepted. Gwaine joined them eventually, after he returned from a meeting. They all learned some new words from Fives’ frustrated grumbling, but he was improving, slowly. After a while, he had gotten enough of a handle on it to actually write a few things down, displaying a completely new lettering system that fascinated Leon and Percival instantly. It was called Aurebesh.

“I can write with the script you guys use, it’s just slower,” he explained as Leon poured over the page of odd letters, Percival looking over his shoulder.

“You recognize our alphabet?” Percival inquired. Of all the things he had expected Fives to recognize, the alphabet had not been among them.

“Yeah. We call it High Galactic. But Aurebesh is the more common one.”

“You know two alphabets?” Gwaine asked. Fives nodded. “Fuck me, I can barely stomach one.”

“How many languages do you know?” Leon asked, sliding the page back towards Fives.

“Just one. Well--two-ish.”

“Ish?” Percival repeated.

“Well, the original template for the clones was a Mandolorian bounty hunter,” Fives said, twirling the quill in his fingers. “He spoke Basic--what we’re speaking now--and Mando’a. I know some of the first clones learned Mando’a from him, and I guess it sort of trickled down through the ranks, along with some bits of culture. Most of us know odd phrases and a fair share of curses, but not much more than that. So, two-ish.”

“Neat.”

“How many do you all know?”

“Take a wild guess,” Gwaine deadpanned from where he leaned against the foot of the bed.

Percival smiled. “Yeah, you just hate learning.”

“Not true,” Gwaine replied instantly. “I don’t like book learning. If I were stuck overseas and had to get around, I’d learn on my feet no problem.”

“Oh, yeah, sure. No problem.”

Gwaine frowned at him, the light mocking hitting its mark. “Shut up.”

Percival smiled at him before answering Fives’ question. “I’m with you: two-ish. My father was a Viking, so my siblings and I learned Norse from him. Couldn’t vouch for how good it is now, though.”

“Wait what?” Gwaine was staring at him. “You speak another language? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“‘Cos I didn’t need to,” he answered, fully immune to Gwaine’s pleading expression. At least, immune when he wanted to be.

“But that’s, like--really interesting…”

“Quit it with the puppy eyes, Gwaine. I dunno what you want me to do about it,” Percival lied. He knew perfectly well that Gwaine was now dying to hear him speak Norse, which meant Percival would withhold that as long as he felt like it.

“What about you, Leon?” Fives asked.

Gwaine shifted subjects quickly. “Yeah, above or below ten, Leon?” he joked.

Fives gave an uncertain look, not quite believing it, but not knowing enough to be sure. Leon rolled his eyes. “Three, Gwaine. I learned Latin and some Greek. They’re completely useless languages unless you’re trying to read some old book in the back corner of the library.”

“Still,” Fives said, “three’s impressive.”

“Thanks,” he replied.

“And he’ll add Aurebesh to that list if you give him enough time,” Percival said, knowing Leon’s love of languages in general.

“Hey, it might not be that bad an idea,” Leon defended himself, “now that we know all of this is out there.”

“You know no one really knows you’re out here, right?” Fives reminded him.

“Still.”

“He’s just making excuses to learn it,” Gwaine said, a small grin on his face.

Instead of forwarding the conversation, Leon abruptly said, “Shall we get something to eat? It’s about dinner time.”

“You’re just saying that to shut me up,” Gwaine argued.

“And it works every time.”

“Well, yeah--”

“Then don’t complain. Fives?”

It was nice to see a small smile on his face. He nodded, “Yeah, sure.”

“Glad to know I’m always entertaining,” Gwaine said when he noticed.

“No, no, it’s not like that,” Fives said as he stood up from the table. “Everyone in the 501st knows they can bribe me with food, so I get it.” Percival noticed he still used the present tense, like he was still a part of his battalion. It wasn’t a bad thing, but it clearly showed he hadn’t accepted his own desertion yet. That would take a lot more time.

* * *

Fives didn’t like being in big groups, and fortunately all the knights noticed this without having to ask about it, so they still ate upstairs in one of their rooms more often than not. Despite everything, Fives still ate well, which gave Percival some hope for his future. He remembered how little he had wanted to eat after losing his family. Lancelot had been the only one able to talk him into it.

After they were finished, Fives was antsy. He was up and wandering around his room while the knights spoke, until Percival finally said something about it. “You alright, Fives? You’re a little on edge.”

He shrugged, but every aspect of his body language spoke to how tense he was. “I think I need a walk. I’ve just got too much on my mind. Need to think some things out.”

“Want some company?” Percival offered.

He paused, looking at the three of them. “Well, I guess it’s better than getting lost.”

“Yeah, no kidding,” Gwaine said. “Where do you wanna go? Hey, have you been through the lower town?”

He shook his head. “Not since last time, no.”

Gwaine got to his feet. “Why not, then? It’s a nice little place, not too busy this time of day. We’ve still got an hour of daylight left.”

* * *

They left their dinner dishes neatly stacked on the table in Fives’ room, and Leon informed a member of castle staff to their existence. It always made Percival feel a little guilty when he didn’t clean up after himself like that, but he’d learned to get over it. There wasn’t much point in protesting. The bustle inside the castle hadn’t slowed down any as evening approached, but there was a marked difference as soon as they left the citadel.

It was a lovely summer evening in Camelot, with a relatively clear sky for once. The sun had already started to sink behind the castle, casting long blue shadows across the cobbled streets. There were fewer people out and about here, as most of them were inside eating or clearing up from dinner. A few groups of children played outside the homes, most of them waving and smiling when they saw Percival. Most of the children within the lower town knew he was someone they could trust, and not just because he was a knight.

They started out on a small loop through town, walking with Fives in the middle of the group. He didn’t talk much, his mind clearly on other things, but he did look around at the buildings. Percival wasn’t sure how much of it he actually took in, though. After a while, Percival noticed Fives’ hands were constantly moving. At first, he had assumed it was just a stress-relief mechanism, but the motions were too exact and purposeful to be just that. It was a kind of language, and Fives was talking to himself.

“What are you signing?” he had to ask, curiosity overtaking courtesy.

Fives blinked, returning to the present moment. “What? Oh, um… just… talking to myself, I guess.”

“With your hands?” Gwaine inquired.

“It’s called ARC sign,” the clone explained. “It’s part of our training to learn a silent form of communication.”

“We have something similar,” Leon said, referring to the gestures the knights used out hunting or on a particularly stealthy mission. “Just far less sophisticated.”

“How do you talk about specific people?” Percival wanted to know. “Like, if you and I were talking about Gwaine behind his back, how would you do that?” He didn’t react to the eye roll from Gwaine, but he did enjoy it.

“We have name signs. ARCs either make it up themselves or another ARC names them.”

Gwaine then asked the obvious question. “So can we see your sign?”

In answer, Fives splayed out the fingers on his right hand, palm out, and sort of waved, rotating his hand from the wrist. “Figured the sign for ‘five’ was a bit too obvious,” he said with a small smile.

“That’s really neat,” Percival said.

He nodded silently. After a stretch of silence, Leon asked the other obvious question. “Do you want to talk to us instead of yourself about whatever it is that’s bothering you? You can say no, of course.”

Fives glanced at him, then dropped his gaze. “Ah, it’s nothing too deep. I just have no idea what I’m supposed to do. About any of it.” He shrugged helplessly. “I think I’m open to suggestions, guys.”

“Well,” Gwaine said, “when I was on the run, I spent a bit too much time in taverns and jail cells, so anything i’ve got is more of a cautionary tale than a recommendation.”

“I wouldn’t recommend doing most of what Gwaine lived through, in fact,” Leon said.

The knight in question shook his head. “Yeah, not a good idea.”

“Actually,” Fives said, tilting his head, “I wouldn’t mind a drink about now, speaking of taverns.”

“Drinks it is,” Gwaine agreed immediately, surprising neither Percival or Leon. He took the lead in cutting through the town towards the Rising Sun tavern on the main thoroughfare.

On the way, Fives asked, “Why were you on the run?”

Percival snorted quietly, recalling several stories Gwaine had told them over the years. “Why  _ wasn’t _ he on the run?”

“Hey.”

“What? You’ve told us stories.”

Gwaine rolled his eyes. “So I’ve led something of an eventful life, and I’ve been the subject of more than a few hunts in that time.”

“But why?” Fives repeated.

After a brief pause, he answered, “Yeah, I guess Percy has a point. I’ve pretty much been arrested or otherwise confronted the law for just about everything. Except--no, pretty much everything. Not that I was guilty of all of it, I should add.”

Percival smiled, always amused by the barely controlled chaos that was Gwaine’s character. Leon felt the same, but the only sign of it was the smallest upturn at one corner of his mouth. Fives arched an eyebrow at Gwaine. “How are you still alive?”

The knight cracked a knowing grin, the kind that meant there was plenty more behind what he was about to say, but that it would be saved for another time. “Guess I’m just lucky.” Percival had become awfully fond of that sort of grin over the years.

The Rising Sun was well populated when they arrived, but it was early enough in the evening that most people were still civil. A few other knights were there as well, waving hello when they recognized Percival, Gwaine, and Leon.

“It’s not exactly quiet,” Leon said. “Hope that’s alright.”

“It’s fine,” Fives assured him. “Wouldn’t expect a place like this to be quiet.”

They managed to find a table for the four of them in a corner of the tavern. Fives sat between Leon and Percival with his back to a wall.

Gwaine put a hand on the table. “Alright. What sort of stuff can you get where you’re from?”

“Alcohol isn’t really allowed unless we’re on leave.”

“So you sneak it in, I know,” he said, seeing right through the deflection. “But I assume there’s some places you can get sloshed if you want to.”

“There’s 79’s on Coruscant. It’s the clone bar. We go when we’re on leave.”

“Well, I’d ask your favorite drink, but I probably wouldn’t know what it is.”

“Probably not. I’ll drink just about anything, don’t worry too much about it.”

Gwaine nodded. “Fair enough. I’ll be back.” He left to retrieve drinks. Normally, he might have taken his own time in doing so, or at least he did when Percival was with him on evenings like this. However, he was back at their table with four mugs within a couple minutes, passing the drinks around. He hadn’t asked Percival or Leon’s orders, but he’d been with them long enough to know what to get them. “So,” he said after taking a drink himself, “still open to suggestions?”

“Sure you want Gwaine’s suggestions?” Percival said, enjoying the slight glare he got from Gwaine.

Fives shrugged and nodded. “I don’t exactly have any experience in evading a manhunt, so, please, suggest away.” He briefly examined the drink in his tankard before trying it.

“What’d you get him?” Percival asked.

Before Gwaine could answer, Fives cut in. “Whatever it is, I could drink way too much of it.”

“It’s apple cider. Probably part of last autumn’s batch. Best of the best, as far as I’m concerned,” Gwaine replied.

“No kidding,” Fives said.

Leon was, as usual, the one to steer the conversation back to a more constructive vein. “So, what exactly do you plan on doing with the information you have? On the chips and the Chancellor?”

The clone shook his head, pausing to swallow another drink. “Honestly, I have no clue. I don’t know who I can trust not to tell the wrong people, and that assumes I know who the wrong people are, which--I mean, there could be a whole network through the Republic that I don’t know about. I only know for sure the Kaminoans and the Chancellor are in on it, but even that has layers.”

“So you need more information,” Percival said.

“And where am I gonna get that as a wanted criminal?”

“Commit more crimes?” Gwaine offered. “You’ve already deserted, you’re wanted for trying to kill the Chancellor--you might as well steal some information.” Both Percival and Leon gave him matching disparaging looks. “What?”

“You know the expression, ‘Two wrongs don’t make a right?’” Leon said.

“Oh come off it, if he gets caught, he’s already gonna be killed.”

“Thanks, I really needed that reminder”

Percival put a hand over his eyes. Gwaine could really be tactless sometimes. “Right, sorry.” At least he had the decency to apologize. “But it pays to be realistic when you’re in a rut like that. Don’t expect to be made a hero if actually manage to… do whatever it is you plan on doing.”

“Yeah, as soon as I figure out what that is,” Fives said sullenly.

Leon spoke up. “Well, what do you want the end result to be?” When he received a questioning look, he clarified. “I mean, if you could snap your fingers and change anything and everything you wanted to change, what would you change?”

After a moment of thought, Fives answered, “I’d make the inhibitor chips disappear.” Leon nodded, silently urging him to continue. “And I’d make sure the Chancellor was out of office, and I’d want everyone to know about it. About everything.”

“Good,” Leon said. “That’s your end result. It’s a starting point, and now you can work backwards. I would argue, of the three things you just named, that removing the Chancellor from office would likely instigate the other two.”

“It would instigate a lot more than that.”

“True,” the knight agreed. “But it might end up being the push you need.”

“Yeah… well, all that leaves is removing the leader of the Republic,” Fives said. “Who is… the most heavily guarded person in the galaxy, lives on Coruscant, has the backing of the entire Senate and Jedi Council, and therefore the GAR.”

It was a daunting task for anyone to look at. While the three knights had helped oust Morgana from the throne of Camelot twice in their careers, this was on a scale almost unimaginable to Percival. “How can you remove him from office?” he inquired, genuinely curious.

“Few ways. The Senate can vote him out, or they can… I dunno, stage a coup or something. I suppose the GAR could overthrow him too, but the Jedi would have to be in on that for it to work, I think.”

Gwaine took a drink and frowned in thought. “Why don’t you just kill him?” Leave it to Gwaine to suggest the least socially accepted option for removing political figures, even if it was the most efficient.

Leon put his face in his hands while Fives stared openly at Gwaine. “What?”

“Why not just kill the Chancellor? It’s a pretty good way to get rid of someone.”

“Did you miss the part where he’s the most heavily guarded person in the galaxy?”

“Hey, I never said it would be easy,” Gwaine defended himself. “It just happens to be the most effective.”

“How the kriff am I supposed to kill the Chancellor?” Fives asked, striving to keep his voice below the din inside the tavern.

“I dunno, shoot him? You’ve got fancy little… what were they, blasters?”

“I can’t just shoot the Chancellor! I’d never get close enough to even aim.”

“But you admit you would if you could?”

Percival interjected, knowing Gwaine would follow this inane path just for his own amusement. “Gwaine, cut it out, yeah? I think executing the leader of a government should be a last resort kind of thing.”

Gwaine rolled his eyes, and Percival caught a brief glimpse of anger in his expression before he spoke again. “Right, last resort. Fives, are you paid? For serving?”

The clone blinked at the sudden change in subject. “Uh… no, not in credits--not in money.”

Gwaine nodded. “They pull the whole, ‘We feed you, we clothe you, we give you a bed to sleep in, so go fight our battles for us,’ yeah?”

“The Republic created us,” Fives pointed out.

Gwaine wasn’t backing down. “The fuck does that matter? They order you to die every day of your life, and you’re supposed to be grateful to them for some armor?” His tone caught Percival’s ear. He’d heard it a few times before, when something touched a particular nerve. It didn’t happen very often, and rarely this quickly. “No, fuck that. I’m all for dismantling this government. It’s fucking garbage. If you’re not gonna shoot the man in charge of this, I will.”

Percival slid his elbow across the table until it pressed against Gwaine’s arm. It wasn’t to reprimand him, just to remind him of his presence. There was a painful silence after Gwaine’s outburst, and Percival could still feel the unrest shedding off his person. He could tell Leon was trying to read Fives to figure out how Gwaine’s words were affecting him, but he was hard to read. Most soldiers got that way after enough experience. It took a lot to let those walls down.

At length, Leon broke the quiet. “Is there someone aside from the Chancellor who might have more information about these chips?”

Fives turned his tankard between his hands. “The Kaminoans. They’re the ones putting them in our heads.” His tone had flattened. “But I can’t go back there. They already know I know too much. They’ll be on high alert.”

“Anyone else?”

He shrugged. “Not really. No one that wouldn’t shoot me on sight, anyway.”

“What about recruiting someone else to find the information?” Percival suggested.

“I tried to tell Kix,” Fives said. Percival recalled the name. The medic, if he recalled correctly. “Just before I left Coruscant, I found him in 79s and tried to tell him how to look for the chips, but I didn’t know if someone might be listening, so I couldn’t tell it to him straight. I just… tried to tell him what level medical scan to use. I have no idea if he’ll figure it out or even try.”

“So could we find him?” Leon said.

“Yeah, would your battalion help out?” Gwaine asked. He was much calmer.

Fives once again shrugged. “I’m not sure. The problem with the 501st is General Skywalker. He and the Chancellor are pretty close. He wouldn’t believe any claims against him without serious evidence, which I don’t have.”

“And we’re back to getting information,” Leon said, and they all nodded.

“I don’t think you can do this from the outside in,” Percival said. “I think you need to start as high up the chain of command as possible.”

“Getting a confession out of the Chancellor would be a good start,” Gwaine said, and Percival couldn’t help but agree.

Fives rubbed his eyes. “That still means I have to get to Coruscant and get to the Chancellor undetected, which is impossible, because the entire GAR is probably on alert by now, with the Coruscant Guard heading the manhunt.” He sighed, resting his chin on his hand. “Can we talk about something else now?”

“Of course,” Percival said. Stressing Fives was not the goal here--helping him was.

“Maybe you should lay low here for a while. Force yourself to think about other things,” Leon said. “If you keep going over this again and again, you’ll wear yourself out.”

Gwaine added, “Yeah, that’s not a bad idea, actually. You need to outsmart your opponent if you want to avoid getting caught.”

“Outsmart the Chancellor?”

“No, no, no, outsmart the people looking for you. The other clones.” Now Percival was curious. Gwaine’s ramblings were valuable, once he got to the point. “You’re a clone, yeah? Predictable is kind of your thing. You’re one drop in a bucket of water that all acts the same, despite human nature.”

Percival saw the idea. “So if he stays here and learns a few things, he’ll have a better shot.” Gwaine nodded, taking a sip from his tankard, his point illustrated.

After a moment to think, Fives agreed. “I do need to lay low for a bit. Dunno how long, but a while.”

“Well, you’ve got a place here,” Leon said. “Don’t worry about that.”

“Thanks.” There was a small smile on Fives’ face.

“We will have to teach you a thing or two if you’re staying, though,” Gwaine added, making Percival and Leon both smile slightly.

“Good. I’ll need something to keep my mind off things.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear this is going somewhere I promise things will eventually leave Earth gimme two more chapters but for now enjoy the image of Fives with a sword.

Adjusting to Camelot certainly kept Fives’ mind off of his situation. He started keeping a kind of a calendar for himself to stay on track, but after about three weeks, he stopped. He found he just kept forgetting to mark down the days when he got back to his room at night. For the first time in what felt like a very long time, Fives was almost relaxed. His body adjusted to the rotations of Earth around two weeks in, joining the rest of the castle in waking up around sunrise and going to bed a little after sunset. Percival helped him keep to a physical regime, now that he didn’t have Rex dragging him out of bed for physicals every day. The normalcy of daily exercise went a long way to settle him in. Although, it was odd to be in such good shape and not fighting a war at the same time.

He was learning, too. The hours of training every day were making a dent, and he had to inform the knights that he’d completed ARC training in just under two months. His progress was apparently alarming. By the end of two weeks, Fives could hold his own sparring most of the younger knights with quarterstaff, although the more senior knights could still knock him on his  _ shebs _ in a spar, and that included Gwaine, Percival, and definitely Leon.

One morning, Fives arrived at the training green with Gwaine after breakfast to find only Leon and Percival waiting there. That was odd.

“What’s this about?” he asked, eyeing the knights. The wooden sword in Percival’s grasp did not escape his notice.

Gwaine drew his sword. “You wanna learn how to use one of these?” he asked, sticking its point in the ground.

Fives very much wanted to learn how to wield the broadswords all the other men did. It seemed the primary weapon in this place, so learning to use it was a good idea. Plus, they looked really cool. “Yeah, sure,” he said, trying to disguise his excitement.

Percival hefted the wooden sword in his hand, holding the hilt towards Fives. “Then you’re gonna have to learn with one of these first.”

The wooden sword was heavy. Not unbearable--he was an ARC--but definitely heavier than Fives had expected it to be. He examined it, unused to wielding anything other than blasters and pistols. “Training sword?”

Leon nodded. “With you, we start from the basics.” He drew his own sword and stood next to Fives. “The stance is similar to quarterstaff, which is good, since you’re already pretty good at that. Wide base, low center, square your hips.”

Fives mimicked the stance as best he could. Leon stood up for a moment to nudge his boot over to widen the stance a little more before dropping back into his stance to continue the lesson.

“Now, technically speaking, the swords issued to knights are hand-and-a-half hilt. That means they can be wielded with either one or two hands.” He demonstrated the two grips. “But all the motions are the same with either one, so I’ll teach you one handed to start.”

“And anyway,” Gwaine added from the side, “you won’t have an opponent in front of you for a few days, at least.”

In response to Fives’ questioning look, Percival said, “Gotta learn the footwork first.”

For the next couple hours, Fives dedicated himself to learning advances, retreats, and proper guard position. None of the movements was too difficult, but Leon had exacting standards, so Fives found himself going over motions again and again until he approved. It reminded him of ARC training, and Alpha-17 watching the trainees like a hawk. He also couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the broadsword technique he was learning here and some lightsaber forms he’d witnessed from the Jedi.

Leon finally called a stop around midday as the sun and heat started to take their toll. Fives trekked over to where Gwaine and Percival stood in the shade near the armory, Leon following. He didn’t feel as awful as he had the first days of ARC training, and that was something, but he was tired and sweaty, and he needed a drink. Percival gave him a small, sympathetic smile when he held out a hand to take the training sword from him. Gwaine’s smile was a bit more smug as he offered a waterskin, but he was too tired to care.

“I wish half the men I train had your work ethic,” Leon said.

Fives wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Yeah, well. You don’t get as far as I did in the GAR by being lazy.” After another drink, he asked, “Why’re the training swords weighted like that?” He would admit, the weight hadn’t bothered him initially, but it added up over a couple of hours.

“They’re made to be heavier than the real things to build muscle,” Leon explained, taking the wooden sword from Percival. “When the men can perform at speed with one of these, they’ll be even faster with a lighter weapon.”

Fives was familiar with the concept. He recalled running sprints with Echo slung over his shoulders in  _ full kriffing kit _ because, in Alpha-17’s words, “If you can’t get a trooper out in time, you’re both dead! Now  _ move!” _ Despite that reminder, Echo’s snarky comments in his ear had almost made the exercise entertaining.

“Who wants lunch?” Gwaine asked, unsurprisingly.

“I think I need to lay down in a freezer first,” Fives answered before remembering the knights wouldn’t know what a freezer was. “A very cold place. I would like a very cold place.”

“Hey, I could dunk you in a lake if you want,” Gwaine offered as the four of them started walking back to the castle.

He smiled. “Maybe not today.”

* * *

The sword lessons continued, usually every other day, opposite to when Leon had to run training. Of course, that didn’t give Fives a break, because he still attended the other training sessions on top of the broadsword. Happily, he discovered in one such session that the hand-to-hand training he’d been given over the years was lightyears ahead of most of the other knights, senior or otherwise. He still couldn’t cleanly beat Leon, though. Somehow, it always ended in a draw of some kind. He’d swear that knight was half-Jedi if he hadn’t known this kingdom hadn’t had any contact with the rest of the galaxy in its entire written history.

During these sessions, Fives’ skills allowed him to integrate a little more among the rest of the knights, which was nice. After the first couple of weeks, he learned more names, and it started to feel like he was part of something again, as opposed to running away from it all.

At the moment, his attention was on his opponent, a younger knight named Darren. His hand-to-hand was good, but there was plenty of room for improvement, like most of the knights in this training block. They were all on the shiny side--they were “green,” as the knights around here called it. Darren was a cautious fighter, no matter the weapon, always waiting for someone else to make the first move. Fives had seen it before. It wasn’t necessarily a bad method, but it needed to be addressed. Percival had asked Fives to work with him for that reason--to get him “out of his shell,” which had been an odd expression to learn.

Fortunately, Fives had a few tricks to put to use. “So, Darren,” he started, “Percival tells me you’re a bit of a defensive fighter.”

The knight shrugged. “If he says so.”

“That’s it? Just gonna take his word for it?”

His eyes darted around before answering. “He’s been a knight longer than I have. I figure he knows better.”

“You’re not gonna win any battles by figuring someone else knows you better than you know yourself.” Fives stepped into sparring range and took up a half-hearted guard. He gestured to Darren. “Hit me.”

“What?”

“Come on, I’m speaking your language. Hit me. Punch me in the face, come on.”

“Why?”

That was a new question. No one in the 501st would have hesitated. Not after all the pranks Fives had pulled over the years. “Because why not? We’re sparring, I’m your opponent, so punch me.” He held up his left hand. “Fine, I’ll give you a target that’s not my face.”

Darren dropped into his guard position, bringing his hands up to his face. He paused for a second before striking out with his right fist. The form was good. The aim was good.

“That was pathetic,” Fives told him. Before Darren could say anything, he went on. “I could barely feel that, come on! I know you can hit harder than that!”

He tried again, and the punch was stronger, but not nearly where Fives wanted it to be.

“Again!” The punch was again a little stronger. “Come on, a lothkitten could hit harder than that!” The name slipped out before he could censor himself. Darren didn’t seem to notice as he struck out again, harder. Most of the knights had accepted the strange words that occasionally came out of Fives’ mouth. “You’re stronger than that, come on! Like you mean it!” Finally, Darren’s punch was where it should be. “There! Like that, again,” Fives said. He waited until the young knight struck out again before moving his hand to block the hit and return with a jab of his own.

Darren blocked it at the last minute, then went on the offensive. Fives let him. Now was not the time to knock him down, even if he could manage it in about three or four moves. Darren was more confident now, marginally, and Fives knew not to burst that bubble until he could reconstruct it on his own. After a while of back-and-forth, Fives was satisfied with the initial results, so he put the sparring match to an end quickly by evading Darren’s defenses and pinning an arm behind his back. To his credit, Darren tried to break free before tapping out.

“Good job.”

“Why’d you start like that?” he asked, shaking out his hands. “The punches.”

“Because it’s a good way to get someone who might lean towards the defensive on the offensive,” Fives replied. “It worked, by the way.”

Darren nodded. “Oh.”

“Wanna go again?”

He nodded again, already moving back into his guard position. Fives did the same, but his hands had barely risen to his chin before Darren moved. A pleasant surprise--he was gaining confidence, quickly. Of course, he still had a long way to go until Fives didn’t feel a need to hold back just to give him a chance to test his skills, but it was progress. The sparring rounds still ended the same way; Fives ended them after he saw fit, and luckily Darren didn’t complain about it. Some of the troopers Fives had known as shinies had hated when Fives went easy during sparring, despite the bruises they got when he followed their wishes and wiped the training mats with them. Hardcase had been like that sometimes.

As the training block came to an end, Fives waited with Percival as the younger knights filed back into the armory and into the castle.

“You’re not a half-bad teacher, you know,” Percival remarked.

“Thanks.”

“Do you have to do it a lot? Teach?”

Fives shrugged. “I guess. We’re always getting new troops, and since I’m an ARC--er, I was… um. Anyway, we have to fold in the rookies, teach ‘em how the 501st does things--that sort of thing.”

The knight nodded. “Makes sense. I was gonna go meet Gwaine back from patrol before getting something to eat before your broadsword lesson. You wanna come along?”

“Sure.” They followed the rest of the knights into the castle, then made their way out to the courtyard. By now, the castle residents had adjusted to seeing Fives around, so he no longer drew the attention he had when he had first arrived about a month ago. Truthfully, he found it hard to believe it had been that long. It seemed like too much had happened in that time.

He and Percival took seats on a stone bench in an alcove on the perimeter of the courtyard to wait for Gwaine’s patrol to return. Fives had heard about patrols over and over again, but he still had little information on them.

“Where do you go on patrol?”

“Here and there,” Percival replied. “There’s a radius we have to keep an eye on. Mostly, we stop by some villages and see if there’s anything going on. Like raiders or bandits or something. It’s sort of an early warning system when you use it right.”

“Any chance I’ll get to go on one? Haven’t left the city since I arrived.”

Percival nodded, acknowledging he was right, but there was something in his expression that reminded Fives of the looks he’d received on missions after uttering the words, “Well, that wasn’t so bad.”

“Learn how to ride a horse, and you can tag along anytime,” he replied.

“Oh.”

Percival smirked. “Hey, I’m sure Leon would be thrilled to teach you. He’s already having a blast teaching you broadsword.”

The sound of several horses entering the courtyard drew their attention away from the conversation. One of things the GAR never would have taught Fives was any sort of animal handling skills. It just wasn’t used. Typically, the troops brought their own surface transportation in the forms of speeder bikes, walkers, or tanks. Using local wildlife as transport was a last resort, and not one Fives had ever needed to use. So, it wasn’t that he was scared of trying it, he just didn’t like being inexperienced.

Percival got to his feet to meet the patrol as they approached the stone stairs up to the castle. People--the stablehands, Fives had been told--were there to hold the horses as the knights dismounted. Gwaine caught sight of Fives and Percival walking over and smiled at them.

“Hey, Percy. Hey, space man.” He’d started that nickname about a week ago, and seemed in no hurry to stop. Fives didn’t really mind. “I know I didn’t prank either of you this morning, so why are you both waiting for me?”

“I wanted to see if your horse had fallen over from carrying your fat head around all morning,” Percival replied without hesitation.

Gwaine rolled his eyes, and likely would have elbowed him if he weren’t busy detaching his sword from the saddle to return to his belt. “You used that one last week,” he said. “You need new material.” He turned back to them. “But seriously, what’re you boys up to, eh?”

“We were gonna get a snack before my broadsword lesson,” Fives answered.

“Ooh, sounds like a fantastic idea.”

As they climbed the stairs to the main entrance, Percival added, “Fives wants to learn to ride.”

“Hey--what?’ Fives turned on him. “I never said that.”

Gwaine smiled. “Oh, he did, did he? Well, I’m sure we can arrange something.”

“I never--did you hear me?”

Percival and Gwaine contained their widening smiles, continuing as if he had never spoken. “Yeah,” Percival said, “I don’t blame him. He’s been stuck in the city for a month.”

“Okay, that’s true, but--”

“Still, he’s never even seen a horse before,” Gwaine pointed out, ignoring Fives again.    
“It could take another month before he’s ready to ride with us.”

Fives scowled, knowing perfectly well they were just being  _ di’kute _ to annoy him, but he didn’t have to like it. “Guys!”

The two knights finally turned to look at him. “I mean you don’t have to learn,” Percival said.

“Yeah, you can keep staying behind in the city forever,” Gwaine added.

Fives glared at them both. “Are you two done now?”

Gwaine shrugged. “Maybe.”

He shook his head. “Look, I don’t even know how much longer I’ll be here, is all. I’m still trying to figure out where to go after I get off this planet, so I’m just not sure if learning that is the best use of my time.”

Percival raised his hands in peace. “Hey, hey, take it easy. We’re just joking around. You don’t have to do anything or learn anything you don’t want to.”

“Nothing to tear your hair out over,” Gwaine added. “Which is good--you don’t have much to begin with.”

“Ha ha.” He ran a hand briefly over his head. He did kind of miss his hair, but he knew it would grow back eventually. Already, it was as long as Kix’s. He just hoped he would live long enough to grow it back out to somewhere around regulation length. At least he hadn’t had to shave his goatee--that would have been a tragedy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fives does not trust horses. I find this hilarious.

Fives did not like horses. Leon could tell he was alright with the _idea_ of horses, but when confronted with the actual animal, all trust in the world vanished. It was unfortunately entertaining, which is why they had come outside of the city for the first few lessons. There were plenty of open fields where no one would disturb them, and where it was only Gwaine laughing at Fives instead of anyone in the castle who happened to walk by. Leon had brought his own mare out to teach Fives to make it easier to control. Champion was a big chestnut bay whom he had broken himself, so she trusted him completely. Now, all they had to do was convince Fives to actually get on.

“Fives, I’ve known Champion literally her entire life,” Leon insisted, running his hand up and down his mare’s neck. “She’s not going to do anything to you.”

The clone narrowed his eyes at the horse. “I don’t like how she’s looking at me.”

Gwaine snorted. “Mate, she’s a horse. They look at everyone like that.”

“Well, I don’t like it!”

“Here,” Leon said, holding out his free hand (dodging Champion’s attempts to search for theoretical treats in it). “Give me your hand, palm up like this.” Fives did so, his eyes flicking back and forth, always keeping track of the mare’s movements. Leon took it and brought it up to Champion’s nose.

“Hey--what--”

“She’s smelling you, that’s all,” Percival said, taking the words right out of Leon’s mouth.

“Making sure you’re not food,” Gwaine added. Fives’ hand twitched, wanting to draw back, but Leon kept it steady while glaring at Gwaine.

“See?” he said. “Nothing to worry about.” He released Fives’ hand. “Here, switch places with me.” Leon moved to stand at Champion’s head, absent-mindedly rubbing her muzzle with the back of his knuckles, and Fives cautiously moved around to stand by her shoulder. “Percival, show him how to pet her.”

Percival came forward next to Fives and patted Champion’s shoulder heartily.

“That much?” Fives asked.

“Yeah, she’s a big animal,” he replied. “Can’t feel it unless you put some muscle into it. Give it a shot.”

Tentatively, Fives reached out a hand and patted her shoulder where Percival had. Gwaine shook his head. “Fives, mate, you’ve gotta try harder than that. She’s a horse, not a clay pot you can break.”

It took a long while for Fives to convince himself that Champion wasn’t going to eat him, but he did eventually get there. It helped when Leon took the carrot out of one of the saddlebags so he could give it to her and see she was only interested in eating that, not his fingers. Leon had been right to block out a couple hours for this today. But finally, when Leon asked if he wanted to get in the saddle, he agreed.

Percival gave him a leg up, and Gwaine couldn’t resist a chuckle. “A space man on a horse, now that’s a new one on me.”

“Stow it, Gwaine.” He was clearly still on edge, even more so now that he couldn’t move quickly away from the animal.

“Ooh, careful, now. Horses can smell fear.”

Leon shook his head, ducking his head to hide a smile. He could almost feel the displeasure radiating off of Fives. Gwaine had that effect. “He’s lying,” he said, watching Percival get Fives’ feet in the stirrups and show him how to hold the reins. “As long as I’m standing here, Champion won’t move, Fives.” Percival stepped back and nodded to Leon. “Right, you’re all set.”

“If you say so,” he replied.

“All I’m going to do is walk, and she’ll follow me, alright?” Fives nodded, and Leon could see his knuckles blanche white as he gripped the reins even tighter. “It’s just walking, Fives. You have to trust me, and you have to trust her.”

“Yeah, okay, okay.”

Leon gave Champion a rub on her nose, only showing half of the huge smile he wanted to give. He started walking backwards, and once he got far enough, Champion started following him, her ears perked forward towards him. A jolt of fear flashed across Fives’ face when she started walking, but—the soldier he was—he pushed it away. Percival and Gwaine walked either side, although Gwaine couldn’t keep the grin off his face to save his life.

“Relax a bit, eh?” Gwaine said. “Move with the horse, it’s a hell of a lot more comfortable that way.” After a pause, he added, “Like—you move with the woman, makes everyone more comfortable.”

“Gwaine, come on,” Percival groaned, casting his gaze to the sky.

“Don’t act like you weren’t expecting that,” Leon reminded him. “He never passes up a chance like that.”

“And am I wrong?”

“Look,” Fives cut in, “as much as I used to do the same things to my brothers, it’s not helping right now.”

Leon smiled, glancing behind him to watch his step. “Unfortunately, he is right.”

“Well, I know he’s right about the one thing—”

“There’s the Fives I know,” Gwaine said, sharing a grin with him.

“God, I forget there’s two of you now,” Percival said.

When Leon had walked twice around a large circle, he stopped, waiting for Champion to catch up. She walked right up to him, bumping his chest affectionately with her nose. “How was that?”

After a second of thought, Fives nodded. “Not terrible. After a bit.”

“Want to try it by yourself?”

He gave a questioning look. “As in…?”

“As in I stand in the middle of that circle we just made, and you walk around me. You have to steer, you have to keep her walking--all by yourself. Want to try?”

“Sure.”

“Percival will walk with you, don’t worry,” Leon added, knowing he was still apprehensive. “You won’t be totally on your own.”

“Why not me?” Gwaine asked.

“We’re not trying to give him a heart attack, that’s why,” Percival answered, rephrasing the words Leon had been about to say himself.

Gwaine put a hand over his heart. “What? You don’t trust me not to do something mean to the new guy? Me?”

“Gwaine,” Fives said, “I wouldn’t trust _me_ not to do something mean to me.”

“Fair enough.”

“Right,” Leon said. “Steering. If you want her to go left, you pull back on your left rein, and if you want her going right, you pull back on the right rein.” He moved to Fives’ side, briefly asking if it was alright to manipulate his hands. After receiving a nod in reply, he went on to demonstrate what he had said. “Good?” He had a feeling Fives would feel better once he knew how to control the horse more.

His feeling was correct. In the remaining time Leon had allotted for the lesson, Fives grew much more comfortable around Champion. It would take some time before he was capable to go off by himself, but it was a good start. After Fives had dismounted, Leon asked if he wanted to walk her back to the stables, and he agreed--following a short pause to consider it.

“I’m curious about something,” he announced as they walked.

“What?” Leon asked from where he walked on the other side of his horse.

“When I was here last,” Fives began, “you said it wasn’t normally this quiet. How Camelot has its fair share of enemies. I can’t help but notice it seems kinda quiet around here. Why’s that?”

“How the hell did you remember that?” Gwaine asked. “I barely remember that, and I haven’t been through nearly the stuff you have.”

“We’re made to have better memories than the average human.”

“Figures.”

Leon spoke up to answer Fives’ question. “You are right, though. It is quieter since the war ended.”

“War?”

“More like a glorified family squabble,” Gwaine replied.

“Yeah, a glorified family squabble that started with a mass purge of magic-users,” Percival pointed out. “It was war.”

“What happened?”

Leon looked back at Gwaine and Percival, but they made it silently clear they were not going to be the ones to explain this to him. Of course. “Well, the basics are the previous king--Uther--had a vendetta against magic in general. He started the Great Purge over twenty years ago, seeking out any magic-users in Camelot and killing them.”

“Where’d the vendetta come from?”

“His wife died from magic.”

“Wasn’t that his fault, though?” Gwaine added in. “That she died. He made that deal, Arthur’s life for someone else’s?”

“It wasn’t entirely his fault,” Leon said. “But magic wasn’t to blame, either. He toyed with the natural order of things, and he paid the price.”

“So he started the war,” Fives said, “but how did it end?”

Leon continued. “I haven’t finished how it started yet. Turns out, Uther had an illegitimate child--his ‘ward’ the Lady Morgana. And she has magic. When she figured that out, she and Uther had more than a falling out, and eventually she left Camelot entirely to start a campaign to destroy it or take it over, or both, I suppose. That’s the war. Hence why Gwaine called it a ‘glorified family squabble.’”

Fives made a noise--not quite confusion, but close. “But Camelot’s still standing,” he said. “So what happened?”

“Morgana may be powerful, but it turns out, there’s someone even better than her.”

“Yeah, and he’d been right under our noses the whole time,” Gwaine added.

Leon nodded, a small smile pulling his mouth up. “True. The king’s manservant, Merlin. You’ve seen him around. He still serves the king, but now he’s got his hands full being an ambassador for the magic-users starting to return to Camelot.”

“Wait--Merlin?” Leon recognized the surprise and incredulity in Fives’ voice. He’d heard it in his own not too long ago, and in everyone else’s. “The scrawny one with the scarf?”

“The very same,” Gwaine said. “Most powerful sorcerer to ever walk the Earth. He showed up and suddenly Morgana was a bit more open to negotiations.”

“And his dragon was bigger than hers,” Percival put in, which was true.

“His dragon could have eaten hers for breakfast and still have been hungry.”

“You have dragons here?”

“You know what a dragon is?” Leon couldn’t help but ask.

“Sure, there’s all kinds of dragons all over the galaxy. So, what--he made them talk it out or something?” Fives’ disbelief was also familiar to Leon, having been one of the men there, surrounded by the dead and dying, trying to imagine a peaceful solution to the chaos.

“Basically. He made Arthur promise--once Arthur had gotten over the shock--to lift the ban on magic and reopen Camelot’s borders to practitioners. He made Morgana end her campaign to kill Arthur and take over Camelot, which--she never had any _legal_ rights to the throne as an illegitimate child in the first place, but anyway--”

“What happened to her, then? Morgana. I mean, I figure I haven’t seen her around.”

“Thank God,” Gwaine muttered.

Fives glanced back. “I take it she’s still not very popular.”

“Not really, no,” Percival replied.

“She ended up in the Perilous Lands, eventually,” Leon went on. “Which are getting less and less perilous since the curse of the Fisher King was lifted by his death. Magical refugees started making it a bit more hospitable.”

“Makes me wonder how she and Mordred are getting on with them,” Gwaine said. For Fives’ sake, he added, “Mordred was a knight, and apparently also a druid, and he defected to Morgana after Arthur executed his lady friend.”

Leon often wondered how they were faring. He and Morgana had grown up as friends together, along with Arthur, Gwen, and Elyan. He couldn’t deny the hurt of her life’s path still stung every once in a while. As for Mordred, well--he had been a knight. Leon had trained him, sparred him, helped him through the ranks until he was one of the best Camelot had ever seen. He was allowed to feel the pain of his betrayal. Losing friends always hurt.

“And that’s it?” Fives asked. “They just left? Can’t have been that simple.”

The knights shrugged. Dealing with Morgana had been relatively simple compared to the slew of followers with unfinished business she left behind. “Sometimes, things are oddly simpler than they seem,” Leon said, not entirely believing it himself.

“I say she didn’t want to deal with Merlin’s wrath,” Gwaine added with a grin.

Leon shook his head faintly. “Sure.”

* * *

By the end of the week, Leon was fairly certain Fives was planning to leave within a couple days. He didn’t say anything about it, but the three knights had all picked up on it. He’d gone out to check on his ship a couple times, he’d been signing to himself more--talking through his plans, and he’d actually missed a few training sessions, which was uncharacteristic. Late one night, after everyone had gone to bed--including Fives--Leon, Percival, and Gwaine met in Leon’s room to discuss. It was after sunset by about an hour, so they were surrounded by candle glow. It gave a certain secretive mood to the meeting.

“So when do you think he’s gonna leave?” Percival asked.

Leon shrugged from where he leaned against his bed’s footboard. “Few days, maybe?”

“You’d think he’d tell us when,” Gwaine said. He was a little prickly about Fives leaving. They got along, and with Merlin so busy with new duties, Gwaine had sort of latched on to another chaotic friend.

“He doesn’t have to tell us anything he doesn’t want to,” Percival said.

“I know. And I don’t have to like it.”

Leon nodded. “I have to agree. I don’t like it either.”

“Seriously? You never agree with me.”

He rolled his eyes. “I just…” He hesitated, unsure how exactly to explain his thought process. “I have a bad feeling about it.” It was the best he could do. It was the only way he could explain the creeping notion that something bad would happen that had started a few days ago. Such inclinations typically appeared before a battle, or before a clan of bandits ambushed them in the woods. To have it happen during peacetime had unsettled him.

“But there’s not much we can do about it, is there?” Percival pointed out. “We’ll never convince him not to go, and there’s no way he’ll let any of us go with him. We’re useless out there.”

That was also true. While Leon had learned Aurebesh, and all three knights were capable fighters, they were from a totally different world. Fives would have his hands full making sure they didn’t die if they came along.

“Useless or not, it’s still millions and millions of people out there being treated like slaves,” Gwaine insisted. “Fives is trying to do something about it, and I’ll be damned if he fails ‘cause he didn’t have the help he needed.”

“We’re not the help he needs,” Percival replied, although Leon knew they both agreed with Gwaine.

“Who else is gonna help him, then? He’s a wanted criminal.” There was a pause, a silent agreement. “Sure, we don’t know what we’re doing, but it’s not like we’re helpless. We can learn, just like he did here,” Gwaine pressed on, knowing he had the others’ allegiances.

Leon folded his arms and hated that something in him knew Gwaine was right. He should protest. He should point out they all had responsibilities to Camelot and to Arthur. But the voice behind those sentiments was a whisper compared to the one wanting to help Fives. “He’ll never let us go,” he said, still trying to find a balance between the two voices.

“So we don’t give him a choice,” Gwaine said.

“How are we gonna tell the king?” Percival finally asked. A heavy silence followed. Clearly, Gwaine had been putting that subject off as well.

Fortunately for the knights, the Knight’s Code had nothing specifically about going away from your kingdom to help someone in need--in fact it was encouraged. Knights errant were less common in recent history, but the Code still included them. And fortunately, Leon knew the Code very well. “Technically,” he said slowly, “as knights, we have a duty to protect those who cannot protect themselves and to help those in need to the best of our ability. And knights errant exist.”

Percival and Gwaine looked at him for a moment, probably not sure they had heard him correctly.

“Did…?” Gwaine glanced at Percival, who was wearing the same confusion on his face. “Did you just give us a legal excuse to help Fives?”

Leon regarded them innocently. “I was simply informing you of our duties as knights of Camelot.”

“Right…”

Percival asked, “So I take it that means we’re gonna help?”

Leon shrugged. “I guess so.”

Gwaine nodded certainly. “Alright. Let’s go get the chancellor."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That was the shortest and simplest ending to the Merlin plot I have ever seen and I made it up. Idk it's not wildly important I suppose. Aaaaanyway, thank you for all the kudos and comments!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Am I still salty over the lack of addressing clone trauma in the show? Yes. Yes I am.  
> Also... last chapter on Earth!

Fives couldn’t sleep. Again. It had gotten better as he settled into life at Camelot, but with his departure looming, ever-present in his mind, the progress had vanished. Despite the warm summer night, he was shivering. A string of cautious thought kept running through his head, helpfully reminding him of all the ways his mission could go wrong. It didn’t even sound sure he would get into the Mid-rim territories, let alone get to Coruscant.

“Would you please _shut up_ ,” he groaned, rubbing his eyes.

 _No, I don’t think you realize the pile of_ osik _you’ve landed yourself in._

Fives sighed. He recognized the anxious scolding. He’d know it anywhere. “Pretty sure I do.”

 _So you think you can sneak across the entire galaxy and onto Coruscant and_ into the Chancellor’s office _without being noticed? Or shot dead on sight?_

“I have to try, and you know it.”

_No one listened to you last time. What makes you think this time will be any different?_

“I’m not waiting for people to listen to me this time.”

_Oh, so you’re just increasing the likelihood they’ll shoot to kill on sight. Brilliant._

“Force, I almost forgot how much you worried.”

 _The whole reason you’re talking to me is because you haven’t forgotten,_ di’kut.

Maker’s sake, he couldn’t even lie to the voice in his head.

With another sigh, he sat up, untangling himself from the blankets on the floor. He slept there when he couldn’t get to sleep anywhere else, and he’d moved there a couple hours ago. Slipping silently out of the room, he found the corridor empty and softly lit by torches along the walls. Without thinking, he moved soundlessly, tapping into the ARC training carved into his brain. When he finally reached Percival’s door, he hesitated, the guilt of waking the knight threatening to drag him back to his own silent, empty room.

“Oh, come on, he’s not gonna kill you,” he muttered to himself, and knocked on the wooden door, hoping it was loud enough. After waiting for a moment, he tried again, wincing slightly. Another long moment dragged by, and Fives was considering putting on his boots and going for a walk if this didn’t work when the door opened.

“Hey,” Percival said, rubbing the side of his face. “Everything alright?”

Fives hugged his arms to himself. “Can’t sleep,” he replied lamely. “Can we talk?”

After a second to process, the knight nodded, opening the door further and stepping aside. “Yeah, ‘course.” He closed the door after him before moving to light some candles. Fives stood by the door, feeling more than a little out of place. Percival pulled the chair out from his desk and gestured for Fives to sit.

“I hope I’m not too much of a bother,” he said as he did so.

Percival sat down cross-legged on his bed and smiled. “No, don’t worry about it. Honest, I thought you were Gwaine before I opened the door. He comes over here all the time.”

“Why?”

“He just likes bothering me.”

A smile appeared briefly on Fives’ face. “Figures.”

After a short pause, Percival asked, “Why can’t you sleep?”

Fives thought, trying to settle on just one reason. There were so many factors. “Can’t stop thinking.” It was a start.

“About what?”

“Everything.”

“Not surprising,” the knight said. “You’ve got a tall order in front of you.”

Fives nodded. “Yeah, no kidding.” He sighed, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Truth is, I just hate that room sometimes.”

Percival frowned. “Why?”

“Because it’s quiet and it’s empty, and I don’t like quiet and empty,” Fives replied.

“Ah.” He seemed to have an understanding. “I suppose you’re used to being around all your brothers when you sleep.” Fives nodded. Percival tilted his head, regarding him intently. “That’s not all that’s keeping you up, is it?” he asked.

Fives tried not to show how the mild surprise he felt. He’d seen over the past month or so how well Percival could read people, but it still caught him off guard. “How do you read people so well?”

The knight smiled and shrugged. “Dunno. Always been good at it. I’m right though, aren’t I?”

He was. Some little part of Fives’ mind wanted to tell Percival everything--tell him just how awful his life had felt since seeing Camelot for the first time. He even wanted to tell him about Echo (Percival would understand that, right?). He hadn’t told anyone everything since he’d lost Echo--not even Rex. He’d been unsure Rex would want to hear about… everything. Some of it might have planted uncertainty in his abilities, which was the last thing Rex needed in one of his ARCs.

But if he was going to have any chance at all in exposing the plot behind the inhibitor chips, he couldn’t be losing sleep over the past like this. He needed to deal with it. And if talking helped, then he’d talk. Finally, he asked, “When you lost your family, did you ever find yourself… talking to them?” He asked it cautiously, hoping the knight wouldn’t dismiss it as utterly ridiculous.

There was a moment of pensive silence before Percival said, “Well… I wasn’t big on talking, really. I did tend to see them--you know, sort of catch them out of the corner of my eye, but it was just someone who looked like them. But I did--well, here.” He got off the bed and walked past Fives to the desk, pulling a wooden box out from under it. He handed it over.

“What is it?” Fives held the box like it was made of flimsi.

“Open it.”

Carefully, he undid the little latch and lifted the lid. Inside were pages and pages of flimsi--paper, although it was yellowed a bit from age. Each page was covered top to bottom in neat High Galactic script. “Once I learned how to write,” Percival started to explain, “I wrote letters to them. Every day. I guess it was my way of letting them know I was alright. And telling them that I missed them, and trying not to forget.”

Fives gently picked up the page on top to examine it. “Do you still do it?” he asked.

“No, I stopped a year and a half ago, I think.”

“Why?”

Again, the knight paused to think, his eyes focused on the box in Fives’ hands. “I stopped when I felt like they knew. They knew I was alright, so I didn’t have to keep telling them. And it got to the point where I didn’t need to do it to feel better, which is why I started. I had a new life here, a new kind of family.” His gaze traveled up to meet Fives’. “It does get better.”

“Yeah,” Fives said, looking back into the box. He closed it, fixing the little latch in place. “I guess.”

Percival got up and received the box to replace it under his desk. When he sat back down on his bed, he finally asked what Fives had been both dreading and dying to answer. “So… who are you talking to?” When he didn’t immediately reply, he added, “Come on, no one asks something like that without personal experience.”

Despite expecting the question, having to answer it was hard. Fives let his eyes drop towards the floor. He took a breath to try to calm himself. “Echo.” There was a familiar twinge of pain to which he’d grown accustomed. It wasn’t pleasant. “I lost Echo like a week after we left here last time.”

When he looked back to Percival, he saw an expression of profound understanding he had never expected from a nat-born raised so far off the grid. “I’m so sorry,” he said, barely above a whisper, and he meant it. Fives could hear how he meant it. There was a heavy silence after that, but it felt less empty with two people in the room. Finally, Percival spoke up, his voice still soft. “What do you talk about?”

It wasn’t the question Fives had expected. “What?”

“When you’re talking with Echo, what do you talk about?”

The question may not have been expected, but he realized that somehow, some way, it was exactly the question Fives wanted to answer. “We… we were always sort of each other’s way of coping. So now, if I’m stressed, or I can’t sleep, or something like that… I still need that. Nothing else ever works.”

Percival nodded. “I understand.”

“It feels like I’m going crazy sometimes, talking to him.”

The knight shook his head. “I remember how close you two were; it’s not crazy. Especially with all the crap on your plate right now--I think you’d be mad _not_ to be talking to someone.” When Fives didn’t reply, or even react visibly, he asked, “Are you surprised it still hurts this much?”

Fives considered it for a moment. “I don’t think so,” he said, recalling the older clones he’d met and fought with. Men like Rex and Cody. He’d caught glimpses of the curse that came from a long life in the war, so he had expected the same, if he were lucky enough to live that long. “I just…” He sighed. “We’re made to withstand any sort of stress we’re put through. So we can fight longer and better. But it’s been over a year, and I still have his voice in my head.”

“No one can plan for everything,” the knight pointed out. “Did you really think you could find out about these chip things, watch Tup die from it, take yours out, find out the Chancellor’s in on it, escape the Coruscant Guard, fly across the galaxy to a world out in fuck-all nowhere and be perfectly fine?”

Put like that, it did sound monumental. “Yeah, I--I guess it is a lot,” he admitted.

“You _guess?_ Fives, no one could plan for that. The Kamino people never wanted _anyone_ to find out about those chips. There’s no way in hell their… instructions for you lot could have included stuff like this. Face it, Fives, you’re off script.”

He had to agree. It was a good way to describe his mess of a life right now. Still, the voice bothered him. It was a distraction, and a distraction could get him killed out there. “Will it go away?” he asked quietly.

“Do you want it to?”

Fives shrugged. “I dunno. It happened a long time ago. Isn’t time supposed to make it better?”

Percival paused for a moment before answering, a strange curiosity on his face. “A year’s not that long, Fives.”

“It’s not?” It felt like it. So much had happened since then. So many campaigns, so many battles, so much death.

“Not really. A year after my family was killed, I was still writing letters. And time only makes it better when you use the time to actively make it better. Pushing the pain away and hoping it’ll disappear isn’t the same thing.”

“...Right.”

Percival gave a small and slightly sympathetic smile. “You sure you’re ready to go back?”

“No.” It was the honest answer. “But I have to. The longer I wait… I dunno what’s gonna happen.”

He nodded. “I get it. But you still need sleep.”

“Yeah, I know,” Fives sighed, rubbing his eyes.

“Is Echo keeping you up?”

Fives made a noise of confirmation, resting his chin on one hand, gazing at some spot near one of the legs of Percival’s bed. “It’s just kind of weird to hear him so worried. Believe it or not, I was usually the one hanging back, waiting for him to go first. If Echo was worried--really worried…” He trailed off. He shook his head, bringing himself out of the mess of memories clouding his brain. “I’m rambling, sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Percival said. “You’re stressed. Your mind does all sorts of stuff when you’re under that much pressure. Besides, sounds like he’s just looking out for you.”

Fives smiled a little. “Yeah… might let me get some sleep, though. If he’s really looking out for me.”

“Think that’s on you, mate.”

That made Fives smile. “Thanks,” he said.

“No problem, anytime,” Percival assured him with a smile in return. Fives got up from the chair, fairly certain he could find a way to get some sleep now. Percival left his bed to get the door. He added, “It’s been fun, having you around, you know.”

Fives smiled. “Yeah, it’s… it’s been nice.”

“Night, then,” he said.

“Yeah, night.”

* * *

Fives tried to be… discreet about leaving. It wasn’t as if people would be upset about it or try to stop him, but it just felt odd to do it out in the open. He still attended the training sessions when he could, although he had to miss a couple to continue his preparations. It took a while, being as quiet as he was, but after a few days, he felt he was as ready as he was going to be.

He took dinner in his room, alone, and started going over his skeletal plan as he ate. Unfortunately for planning, he still didn’t know how alert the galaxy would be. An attack on the Chancellor was a serious offense, true, and the information about the chips was incredibly dangerous, but he was one clone. How much effort would they put into his capture? Would they even capture him? Probably not. They’d more likely just kill him.

Ironically, he had an advantage in being a clone. With the shiny armor he still had from Kamino and his haircut, he could pass as a different individual as long as he kept his ‘5’ tattoo covered. Still, that had its drawbacks. He could get sent right back to Kamino if he wasn’t careful, and he had no doubt Nala Se would be thrilled to decommission him personally. He was playing a very dangerous game.

When he finished eating, he quickly changed into his blacks and put his shirt, pants, and boots on over them. He didn’t want to draw too much attention by putting on his armor now, but he wanted to be able to do it quickly once he got back out into the galaxy. It looked a little funny with the high collar and attached gloves sticking out from under his shirt, but no one would be looking that hard, and the sun was nearly setting anyway. Pulling a drawstring sack out from his wardrobe, he tugged it open to check inside. Without ration bars and dehydrated foods made for space travel, his provisions were considerably more massive than he was used to, but after doing his best to ask the knights about it casually, he was confident they would last as long as he needed them to, and probably longer.

His armor was already in the ship, along with a quarterstaff he’d snuck out of the castle. He didn’t have any other weapons, and his skills with a broadsword weren’t any use to him at their current level. He’d waited until the last minute to get food. Now… now he was leaving.

Fives looked around at the room--at _his_ room. Sure, he’d only lived in it for a little over a month, but it was one of very few things he’d been allowed to call _his_ in his life. And, true, after he’d gone, someone else would take it over, and that was fine. But for a little while, it had been his, and that felt good. But, he had to move on. Story of his life, really. He had to move on. Next mission, next battle, next campaign, always a next something. Until this short pause in Camelot, he hadn’t realized just how fast his life had moved. There was a part of him that didn’t want to go back.

No. That wasn’t an option. Not with his family still in danger from a hidden threat.

He tugged and tied the bag closed then gently slung it over his shoulder. Time to go. When he arrived at the ship, the sun had slipped over the horizon, but the light had yet to leave the skies. A few people here and there had given him some odd looks, but he was used to that. The ship was as he had left it a few days ago, tucked away in its clearing in the woods. She was a bit bigger than Fives would have chosen for an escape vessel, but he hadn’t had much time to decide. She had a hyperdrive and that was about the only criterium he had specified for himself.

He opened the small door on the hull and climbed in, still wishing there were a better portable light source on this planet than fire, which he hadn’t brought.

“Oh, so that’s how you open it. Couldn’t figure it out for the life of me.”

Fives had whirled around the second he’d heard the voice, dropping the bag of food with a dull thud and instinctively assuming a defensive guard. Gwaine waved through the doorway at him.

After recovering from the shock, Fives hurried to the door and climbed out, intending to tell him off and be done with it, and he started to do so. “Kriffing hells--what the hell are you doing out here?” He was cut short when he saw Leon and Percival standing there as well. “What?” He took in the full scene.

The three knights weren’t dressed in the typical attire they wore around the castle, yet they all had their swords hung on their belts, and Percival had a bag not unlike Fives’ over his shoulder. Gwaine had a jacket, Leon had a long coat, Percival had a cloak--oh gods.

“You are not coming with me,” Fives stated as clearly and as firmly as he could, which, after a few years as an ARC, was pretty firmly.

Gwaine gave a small frown and glanced at the other two. “I don’t really remember asking if we could or couldn’t.”

“I’m telling you: you can’t.”

“Too late.”

“No!” Fives stepped in front of Gwaine when he moved towards the ship. “No! Do you have any idea how dangerous this is _on my own?_ Not including you three, who have never left your own planet?”

This appeared to give Gwaine some pause. “You’re right. I have no idea how dangerous this is. Unfortunately for you, that’s never stopped me before.”

Fives stared openly at him, vaguely recalling similar words coming out of Hardcase’s mouth at some point. Seeking a voice of reason, he turned to Leon. “What about you? Aren’t you the rules guy?”

Leon shrugged. “We’re not breaking any rules. Knights errant exist to help those outside of the kingdom.”

“Did you tell the king?”

“Yes, just after dinner.”

That robbed Fives of words for a couple seconds, but not of angry glares for all three. Percival spoke up in the temporary silence. “Look, Fives, we made a choice. You’re gonna need help, and there don’t look to be many volunteers out there.”

Fives rubbed his face. “Look,” he said, “you get on that ship, I can’t guarantee you come back. In fact, you probably won’t.”

“We’ve gone into battle before,” Gwaine pointed out. “We know what that’s like.”

Fives bit back a frustrated growl. Why didn’t they understand? “No, it’s--you’d be lightyears away from your home.” Searching desperately for something else to say, he tried, “No rites, no funeral, nothing. That doesn’t bother you?” The knights exchanged a glance, apparently unfazed. Having run out of ready reasons to persuade them otherwise, Fives stood there, trying and failing to find words. “Why?” he finally managed, sounding far weaker than he would have wanted.

Gwaine smiled. “‘Cos no one should have to do this alone. And we want to help you.”

“And Gwaine can’t resist an adventure, especially if it includes the risk of death,” Percival added.

“That too.”

Fives looked around at them and sighed. “There’s nothing I can say to stop you, is there?” They shook their heads. He didn’t know what to say. He’d never expected to get help from Camelot in a million years, and yet… He wasn’t sure how to feel about it. Still, feelings aside, he couldn’t dissuade them. “Okay,” he relented. “It’s gonna be a bit cramped in there with the four of us, fair warning.”

“We’ll survive,” Leon said.

“Let’s go overthrow a government, yeah?” Gwaine said, a little too enthusiastically for Fives’ liking.

“Uh… we’re not doing that.”

“Yeah, you’re right. Assassinating a head of state sounds a hell of a lot more interesting.”

Fives shook his head and climbed into the ship, knowing there wasn’t much point in arguing with him. He ducked into the small cockpit to start up the ship and program the navicomputer while the knights got settled in the hold. His hand rested on the throttle as he paused. He was really going back. A memory of Tup’s face drifted into his mind’s eye. A little over a month after his death, and Fives found it wasn’t grief burning in his chest, it was anger. He was angry--really, properly angry--at the twisted plot that had killed one of his best friends, and angry at the people behind it, hiding behind lies and misinformation. Something was going to change, even if it killed him.

“You guys ready?” he called back to the knights.

“Hell no!” Gwaine called back. “Let’s do this!”

Fives ignited the engines for takeoff. “Couldn’t have said it better myself,” he smiled.


	9. Rex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you wanted more angst, you got it. I must have the aftermath of Fives' decisions.  
> Oh, the character Commander Impact is an oc from @mrfandomwars on Tumblr/Queen_of_potatoes_and_Co_Angstalor here on Ao3. They gave me permission to write with him. Go check them out for more Impact content!

The ship never got as quiet during sleep cycle as someone outside the GAR might have imagined. There were still crewmen and troopers going about tasks, no matter the time, and Rex was usually one of them. Unfortunately, at the moment, that task was filling out reports for the short mission Torrent Company had just completed in joint operation with the 212th. The reports weren’t due in for another standard day, but Rex didn’t have anything else productive to do, so he might as well start on them.

He didn’t _mind_ reports, but he’d much rather be in a briefing or inspecting his kit and weapons than doing this. Some of the officers he knew liked the mindlessness of the task, but Rex struggled to keep focused on the letters. His idea for mindlessness was firing at the range for hours at a time. He got through about a dozen before he had to take a break.

Picking up his personal datapad, he sat up in his bunk and started scrolling through the news stories. Not his normal selection, but it had become a routine ever since Fives had disappeared off of Coruscant. Rex had no idea if a story as dangerous as that one would even be reported, but he kept looking nonetheless. He couldn’t leave it alone. It didn’t make any sense. Even a month later, it didn’t make any sense.

Why? Most of the questions flying around this… this disaster started with why. Why had Fives been on Coruscant when he was supposed to be on Kamino? Why had he tried to kill the chancellor? _Had_ he tried to kill the chancellor? Rex considered himself a soldier loyal to the Republic cause, but he’d known Fives for years. He had reason to doubt such a grave accusation. And why hadn't he _told_ anyone? Why hadn’t he told Rex? Or Jesse? Or--or literally _anyone_ ?

Why hadn’t he let someone help?

The light on his comm flashing drew him from the downward spiral of questions without answers. He rubbed his eyes and stuffed the questions back into their little corner of his mind before answering the comm. “Sir?” The general.

“Rex, come to the bridge. Master Windu has some news.”

“Right away, sir.” He set down the datapad and grabbed his bucket from the floor next to his bunk. As he stood up to leave, he heard his datapad _ping_ with a notification, but he couldn’t stop to look at it.

* * *

Half an hour later, Rex was back at the officers’ quarters with a new task. The assault on Anaxis was being finalized for implementation within six months, and the High Generals had decided to use the strategic algorithm Rex had developed with Echo and Fives just before the Citadel mission. Now, he had to pull out all the information on it for the generals.

He wasn’t alone in the quarters. Commander Impact had appeared during the meeting. Had he been at the meeting? Rex was slightly ashamed to admit he didn’t know for sure.

“Rex? Have you seen this?” he asked from the bunks.

“Seen what, sir?”

The commander walked into Rex’s unofficial office. Technically, it was one of two communal office spaces, but Rex spent so much time on the _Resolute_ , it had become his. “This.” Impact held out Rex’s datapad. “Sorry, I know I shouldn’t look through your stuff, but it was on top and… just look.”

Rex paused rifling through an open file drawer and took the datapad back. This must have been the notification he hadn’t had time to open before the meeting. It was a casualty report.

It was Fives’ casualty report.

Rex’s heart sank. His eyes gravitated to the picture in the upper right corner of the report. Had it really been a month since seeing him? He hated how time passed so quickly during war. Tearing his eyes away from the picture, he started to read.

_ARC-5555_

_Status: Deceased_

_Location: Unknown_

Unknown? Really? Rex sat down heavily in the chair behind him. That was what had been written on Tup’s report, despite Rex knowing very well Tup had died on Kamino. It had become standard for when the Republic didn’t want something getting out. He turned his attention to the small notes section at the bottom of the report.

_ARC-5555 attempted to evade Republic forces on [redacted information] using a stolen vessel. The vessel was brought down by force. ARC-5555 was pronounced dead at the scene._

And that was it. That was all the information given, save for the date of death in the upper left corner. Three standard days ago. Rex read the whole thing again. Then again.

Impact asked, “Rex?”

He stopped reading, his eyes once again shifting to the picture in the corner. He’d seen hundreds of casualty reports during his service--he’d been going over the few for the men they’d lost on the most recent mission before the meeting. But this… and Tup… they felt different. They felt incomplete, despite containing more words than most of the reports he saw. Death in combat was simple. Death on Kamino, in a lab, on a table--which, Rex assumed, was what had happened to Tup--that wasn’t simple. That wasn’t how clones were supposed to die.

And Fives… this wasn’t right either. Dying alone, on the run, hunted… 

“Rex.”

“What?” Rex sat up a little straighter, taking a breath to try to clear his head.

Impact moved a little closer. “Is there anything I can do?” he asked quietly.

Rex blinked. Such a small question. “Um.” He looked around, trying to refocus, trying to find a place to put this so he could _deal_ with it. He needed to tell someone. He’d promised Kix he would tell him as soon as he could. “Could you find Kix for me?” he asked, disliking how quiet his voice was.

Impact nodded, offering a weak smile. “Yeah, of course.” He put a hand on Rex’s shoulder briefly before leaving.

Some time later--in Rex’s state, he wasn’t sure how long--there was a knock on the door to the officers’ quarters. In his mind, Rex got to his feet quickly, setting his datapad on his chair, but he’d barely stood up before General Skywalker stepped into his office. “Sir?”

“Rex, I commed you I was coming. You didn't reply. Did you find the information on the algorithm?”

“What? Oh, yes. Yessir, of course.” He returned to the still open drawer on the right side of his desk. After a few seconds of rummaging, he pulled out the data chip in its labeled folder. “It’s right here, sir. Sorry, I was… uh… preoccupied.”

The general took the folder, regarding him skeptically. Rex realized he could probably tell something was wrong. Before he could ask about it, however, Kix walked in behind him.

“Oh, General, I can wait out--”

“No, Kix, it’s fine,” Rex cut him off, beckoning him in. The medic hesitated for a second before coming forward to stand beside the general.

“Rex…? What’s going on?” General Skywalker asked, folding his arms.

Rex sighed, some small part of him hoping that when he turned around to get his datapad, the casualty report would magically disappear. But it didn’t. He held it out to the general. “This arrived just before the meeting. I only saw it a few minutes ago when I got back.”

The general looked it over, Kix staring at it in his hands. When he was done, the general handed it back to Rex, who watched Kix’s eyes follow it as it moved. “That’s… I’m sorry to hear it, Rex. He was a great soldier.”

Rex nodded, trying not to look down at the image of Fives on the report. The general’s acknowledgement of Fives’ death had made it all so much more real.

“Thank you for this,” the general said, holding up the folder. He had never been too good at dealing with other people’s grief. Rex nodded again, not trusting himself to talk.

Kix stayed behind after the general had left. “Can… can I see that again?”

Rex handed it over. He watched Kix read it, probably looking just like Rex had when he’d first read it. When he had finished, he stood there, like Rex had, staring at the picture. The waiting had made it worse, Rex decided. The lack of news after the initial events had given them some spark of hope that they might get the chance to see Fives again, even if it was only before eventual decommissioning. Their misplaced hope made the pain that much sharper now.

“Do you want to tell the squad, or should I?” Kix finally asked.

“I can do it, if you’d like.”

Kix only nodded. He set the datapad down on Rex’s desk delicately and squared his shoulders. “Are we gonna send a transmission to Jesse?”

Rex shook his head, already imagining the look of disappointment on Jesse’s face when he came back from ARC training next month. “No. I need him to learn. I don’t want him distracted.”

“But he’ll hear it a month after everyone else. Is that fair, sir?”

“Fives isn’t coming back, Kix,” Rex said, maybe a little too harshly. “I need Jesse to be the best he can.”

His brother flinched almost imperceptibly, his mouth tightening into a thin line. “Yes, sir.”

Rex let his shoulders slump. He hadn’t meant to lash out. “Sorry, Kix. None of this is normal. It’s hard finding a place to put it.”

Kix dipped his chin, once again looking at the datapad. After a couple seconds, he looked back up. “We’re due for some shinies in a few days, aren’t we? After Ringo Vinda.”

Rex nodded back, recalling the notification from Cody earlier in the week.

“Fives’ bunk… Jess left a note on it. In case he came back.” His voice grew smaller as he spoke.

Rex remembered. He’d passed the empty bunk every few days during inspections, and he’d gone back to read the note that had caught his eye. “We’ll leave it empty until Jesse gets back,” he promised. “Maybe he’ll take it over.” Fives had done so after Echo’s death.

Kix nodded. “Thank you.”

Rex cleared his throat quietly and reached for the datapad, intending to switch the screen over to something that didn’t hurt so much to look at. Before he did so, he saved a copy of it. He’d figure out why he did it later. He set down the device. “If you need anything, let me know,” he said, almost out of habit.

A tiny smile tugged up one corner of Kix’s mouth. “We’ll survive, Captain.”

He returned the smile. “I know.”

Kix remained for a few more seconds, still looking at the datapad before he roused himself. “I’ve got to help Coric with some stuff around medbay,” he announced. He left slowly, casting one last glance at the datapad before stepping out and letting the door slide closed behind him.

Alone again, Rex’s posture deflated and he sat down heavily. This wasn’t fair. He sat forward and opened the bottom drawer of his desk. Technically, clones weren’t supposed to keep personal possessions or souvenirs of any kind. Some policy to make sure they remained as loyal to the Republic as possible. But, as Rex was an officer, and because General Skywalker was so lax about those policies, this drawer had a few odds and ends to make him smile. Well--they usually did.

He pulled out the holopic frame from near the top. This was a favorite. He pushed the button on top, the two halves slid open several inches, and the image flickered to life. Setting it down on the desk, he leaned his forearms in front of it and rested his chin on them. It was one of the first missions Domino had done after ARC training, another joint mission with the 212th, and Rex had volunteered to immortalize the moment for them. He’d offered the holopic to Fives after he lost Echo, but he’d insisted Rex keep it. Rex gazed down at his own face, frozen in a quietly proud smile, one arm resting on Fives’ shoulder.

He squeezed his eyes closed, still trying to find some way to deal with the news.

_Not gone,_ he told himself. _Marching far away._ The old mantra did little to ease the guilt starting to coil in his stomach. He moved his hand, his fingers sinking through the images of the two batchmates standing beside each other. _Maybe marching side by side again._


	10. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Space is big. Also the Earth is round.

Space was big. Very. Very. Big. The sky as viewed from the ground had always looked enormous to Leon, but now that he was floating out in the middle of it, it was truly endless. It reminded him of the ocean, which was not a good thing, to be clear. Ever since the ship had left the Earth, the knights had been glued to the two small windows in the ship’s hull as they moved away through space. They’d watched as their home grew smaller and smaller, the blue and white orb shrinking into the starry expanse.

“I guess this proves the Earth’s round, doesn’t it?” Percival remarked.

Leon tried to scoff, but at the moment, his heart rate had yet to descend from the initial realization of just how very big space was. “That’s been pretty thoroughly proved with mathematics, Percival.”

“Yeah, but fuck maths, we can just  _ see _ it,” Gwaine said, his nose smushed against the glass. “And the moon, too, look at that…”

Fives’ voice carried in from the front of the ship. “Wait, there are people on your planet who don’t know the world is round?”

“Give ‘em a break,” Gwaine said. “They’ve never been off it.”

“What shape did they think it was?”

“Like a disc or something, wasn’t it?” Percival answered.

Fives snorted. “Seriously? Consider yourselves enlightened, I guess. You did know there were other planets in your system, though, right?”

Gwaine tore his eyes from the window and looked towards the doorway to the other room. “Like what?”

“Like this one, starboard side.”

The knights all looked out the right side window as a dusty red sphere was approaching. “We know about other planets,” Leon said in answer to Fives’ question. “I think this one must be Mars. Named after the Roman god of war because of its color.”

“God of war, huh?” Fives said. “Well, we have to get past the asteroid belt beyond it before we can make the jump to hyperspace, so you’ll get a good view of it.”

There was a beat of silence as the knights all tried to understand the unfamiliar vocabulary. “Translation?” Leon asked.

Another pause followed as Fives tried to find ways to explain it. “Uh… asteroids are floating rocks in space, and hyperspace is the fastest way to travel around the galaxy, and I don’t want to hit any floating rocks while going that fast.”

The knights all gave a slow nod as they absorbed the information. “This is gonna be one hell of a learning curve, huh?” Gwaine said, looking out at Mars.

“Hey, you wanted to come along.”

“Speaking of learning,” Leon said, “I presume you have a plan, and could you please tell us that plan at some point?”

“Of course, I’ll let you in once we’re in hyperspace.”

Leon sighed quietly and sat down against the wall dividing the hold and the… what was that other room called? He’d have to ask Fives later. He wasn’t looking forward to hyperspace, not after Fives had referred to it as “the fastest way to travel,” considering they were already going very fast to have passed Mars already.

“Hey, Leon, check this out,” Gwaine said, still looking out the window. “Did you know Mars had two moons?”

“...No?”

“Yeah, it does! They’re ugly looking things, but still--they’re moons.”

“That’s great, Gwaine.”

His friend finally sat back from the window, settling next to Percival against the wall. “Do you get seasick?”

Leon paused. Truthfully, he’d never had much experience on ships. Camelot didn’t border the sea directly, and Leon hadn’t ventured outside of those borders very often. “I… don’t know.”

“Are you serious?” Percival said.

“Yes.”

They looked at him curiously. Percival went on. “Wait, so you don’t know if you get seasick, which means you haven’t been on a ship for any long period of time, but you’re still scared of the ocean?”

“I’m not scared of--I just don’t like it!”

“Sounds like you’re scared of it,” Gwaine said.

“Shut up.”

“Hey, Fives, do people get like… space-sick?” he asked. “Like seasick, but for hyperspace?”

“Yeah, sure, it happens. Not so common, but yeah.” After a beat, he furthered, “Why? Is Leon looking a little off-color?”

“I’m fine,” Leon insisted as firmly as he could manage. “I’ll get used to it.”

“You’d better,” Fives replied. “We’re gonna be in hyperspace for almost two standard days before our first stop.” The three knights looked at each other. Was that… a long time? Or not? What was a standard day? Whose standard? Unfortunately, before they could ask their questions, Fives spoke up again. “Okay, we’re getting to the asteroid belt now. I think I can go around the worst of it, but I’m not exactly a trained pilot.”

“That’s comforting,” Gwaine said, speaking sarcastically for all of them.

“It should be fine,” the clone failed to assure them. “It could get a little bumpy, is all. Probably wanna hang on to something.” Leon cast his eye around the hold of the ship, not finding anything he felt would be sufficient for anchoring him in place. Looking to his friends, they appeared to feel the same. “Oh, and make sure you hold onto the bags back there so they don’t smack you in the face.”

Leon stayed where he was by the doorway between the rooms. Percival looked around and grabbed the bag the knights had brought, as well as the one Fives’ had brought. Gwaine grabbed the bag of Fives’ armor in one hand and latched onto Percival’s arm with the other.

“What exactly is there to hang on to?” Leon grumbled to himself, moving to sit next to Percival as well.

“You’ll survive,” Gwaine said.

“We’re hurtling through empty space inside a metal container. I don’t like the odds.”

“This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to us in months!”

Fives laughed. “Exciting? This is nothing! No one’s shooting at us yet.”

Leon glared at Gwaine’s huge grin. He would have said something, but the ship suddenly swooped upwards, making them all tense and leaving Leon feeling like his stomach had been left behind for a few seconds before catching up. This was going to be… interesting.

Surely, the worst of the asteroids couldn’t have been that much, but it felt like ages of the ship leaning, swerving, diving, and keeling to one side or the other. It even shook Gwaine up fairly well, despite his initial liking of this mode of travel. They didn’t hear from Fives at all, which made sense. Frankly, Leon would have been less at ease had the clone been talking to them throughout the ride. He wanted the pilot as concentrated as he could be.

“How you doing, there, Leon?” Gwaine asked him, and Leon knew him well enough to hear the apprehension in his voice.

“I’m fine,” he answered, bracing himself as the ship tilted its nose upwards.

“I’m the one stuck between you two,” Percival pointed out. “Shouldn’t be complaining, should you?”

“You’ve got someone each side of you to stop you moving,” Gwaine countered.

Leon shook his head as the two descended into bickering. It undoubtedly made them feel better about the situation, so he made no attempt to curb the discussion. He was not enjoying space travel overly much at the moment, but he just kept telling himself that it had to end at some point. Fortunately, he didn’t have much longer to wait. After a long incline in the ship’s trajectory, it leveled out, and Fives spoke up for the first time in several minutes.

“Okay. Think this is as clear a shot as any. Now, jumping to hyperspace is a bit bumpy to newcomers,” he called from where he sat. “I’d brace yourselves against the back wall, if I were you.”

The knights needed only a second to process this before they moved  _ en masse _ to the back wall. They could see Fives now, pushing buttons and flicking switches around him.

“This sounds comforting,” Percival remarked quietly.

“Ready?” Fives asked over his shoulder.

“Absolutely not,” Gwaine replied cheerily. “Go for it!”

“Look out the window, it’s a bit of a lightshow.” With that, there was a noise like a gust of wind up a spiral staircase, and, as Leon turned to look out the round window, the pinprick stars in the black expanse started… melting. Their lights grew oblong, melding with others until it was a sea of blue and white streaks spiraling around them. As soon as the stars were unrecognizable, the knights were all pressed to the back wall as the ship accelerated.

After a few seconds, Fives turned his chair around and got up to join them in the hold. Of all the things, that made Leon’s heart skip a beat. “Shouldn’t you be… in there?”

Fives shook his head as he sat down in front of them. “Don’t need to. We’re on a programmed route. As in, the ship already knows where to go.”

“Wait, how?” Gwaine said.

The clone blinked, clearly thinking of the best way to explain a very complicated process to three people who had no experience with it. “Well… there’s this device in the ship called the navicomputer. Which is an abbreviation of the two words ‘navigation’ and ‘computer.’”

Leon’s brows furrowed. “What’s computer?”

Fives’ pensive look turned incredulous for a second before he pressed his lips together and rubbed the back of his neck while he thought. “It’s a machine.” He looked at them, silently asking if they knew what  _ that _ was. Leon nodded, catching Percival and Gwaine doing the same. It wasn’t a common word, but they knew it. “Okay, it’s a machine that can do… almost anything, actually. Math, navigation, information storage, sending messages, contacting people across the galaxy--you can use it for targeting, so the ship is doing half the work when you’re firing on something. They’re everywhere in the galaxy, so you’d better get used to them.”

“How does it work?” Gwaine wanted to know. When Fives gave them another look of uncertainty, he furthered, “Like… what makes it go? You know, like boats use wind, plants need sunlight…”

“Oh. Electricity. Simply put.”

Leon blinked. “Elec--what?”

“Yeah… this is gonna be a long ride, isn’t it?” Fives sighed. “Tell you what,” he said a little more energetically, “I’ll explain the parts of a plan I’ve got so far, and then I can help get you guys up to speed on the technology. Deal?”

“Deal,” the knights agreed.

“Okay, come over here,” Fives said, getting up and moving back to his chair at the front. After some hesitation, they followed him, crowding around the doorway. He pressed a button in front of him, and a blue image lit up the room, literally surrounding him. “This is a galactic map. Well--part of it, because it’s too big to be useful unless you zoom in to a few sectors at a time.”

Leon looked around at the blue orbs floating in the air, wondering how in the world anyone could keep all these planets straight. Gwaine stuck a hand out, his fingers passing right through the image.

“What is this?” he asked.

“Hologram. They’re images that can be projected into the air, as opposed to flat images, like you’d find in a book, or something. They’re also everywhere, so you’ll seem them a lot.”

“Where’s our planet?” Percival asked, squinting at the Aurebesh writing beside the planets.

“Not on here,” Fives answered, pressing a few more buttons. The image of the map shifted, sweeping over to an almost empty portion of space. Only three planets were marked there. “Your system was never marked down. Most of Wild Space is uncharted. But,” he said, once again turning to the buttons in front of him, “this is where your system would be charted.”

A red dot appeared on the map, far from any of the visible planets.

“No wonder no one knows we exist,” Percival mused. “Really out in the middle of nowhere.”

“Yeah. I still don’t know how we found you guys the first time.”

“And where’s where you escaped?” Gwaine asked.

With a push of a button, the map shrunk dramatically, revealing more of the galaxy and what looked like hundreds more planets. “Coruscant, the capital planet of the Republic, is here.” A planet lit up red.

Leon looked between Coruscant and Earth, not comforted by the massive distance separating them. “How far is that?”

“Far. Almost as far as two planets can get in this galaxy. Almost.”

“And… how long did it take you to get to Earth from there?” Gwaine asked hesitantly.

“Almost four days.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah, but it’d take like two weeks without hyperspace. Galaxy’s a big place.”

Leon frowned, not sure if he’d ever understand the true scale and scope of this galaxy. “But where are we going now?” he asked. “You said you’d already told the ship where to go. I take it we’re not going directly to Coruscant.”

“No,” Fives said, adjusting the map to light up another planet. The Aurebesh label read Naboo. “Naboo is almost halfway to Coruscant. We’ll need to refuel--or just get another ship, since I kind of stole this one. We also need weapons. I don’t like the idea of going much further in the galaxy without something to defend myself.”

“What’s Naboo like?” Gwaine asked.

“Pretty similar to your planet, actually. Blue sky. Green plants. Humans. It’s got a Republic Military Base I can probably get in an out of without raising too much suspicion. Might be able to swipe some blasters from there, might not.”

“That’s what black markets are for,” Gwaine added with a smile. Of the four of them, he probably did have the most experience with criminal activities. “Luckily, criminals don’t tend to change much no matter where you go.”

Fives nodded. “You make a good point.”

Leon saw Percival stifle a yawn. They should all get some sleep. “How long until we reach Naboo?”

Fives hit a button and the galaxy map vanished out of the air. “Long while.”

“We should sleep,” he said, glancing at Percival.

“Yeah, go ahead,” Fives agreed. “I’ll keep an eye on things.”

Gwaine and Percival needed no further prompting to return to the back wall of the hold to settle in. Leon hesitated in the doorway to the… this room. “What is this room called, by the way?” He gestured to where Fives sat.

“In a ship this size, it’s called the cockpit, but--”

“It’s called the what now?” Gwaine’s voice carried from behind them.

Fives and Leon both rolled their eyes before the clone continued. “In larger ships and battle cruisers and stuff like that, the control center is called the bridge.”

Leon nodded, taking a moment to process. “You know you need sleep, too. Eventually.”

He sighed, folding his arms. “Yeah, well. Someone’s gotta make sure the ship stays in one piece.”

“I know, of course. I’ll only let you know, I learned Aurebesh, and Percival’s getting there, too. Gwaine’s hopeless, but he’s got other uses.” That made Fives smile briefly. “I’m only saying, we might be clueless, but we can learn. And, if it means you get some sleep, we  _ will _ learn.”

A small smile returned to Fives’ face. “Thanks.”

Leon nodded back. “Wake us up if you need anything."


	11. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The knights get some science. And space cows!

It was a long time in hyperspace. Gwaine didn’t like staying in one place to begin with, so being in a metal box for hours and hours was slowly becoming torture. It didn’t help that he couldn’t tell how much time had passed, either. When he’d brought that up, Fives had introduced the knights to something called a chronometer or chrono. He’d introduced a lot of things, actually, after the knights had all slept a bit. The verbal acrobatics to explain the galaxy’s technology were amusing, though. Clearly, Fives wasn’t used to explaining electricity as “mini lightning,” and apparently the actual answer involved things called “adams” and … Gwaine hadn’t caught the other bits.

But he was grateful for the knowledge, even if it was rudimentary at best. Once they’d grasped the basic idea of electricity, explaining the rest of the ship went a lot faster, especially when Fives admitted it would take way too long to explain some things, and just skipped them. At least Fives had explained what the “standard” of standard days and years was, and it turned out to match Earth’s twenty-four hour day. After that, the similarities ended, as the week was only five days long, which messed with the lengths of months and years.

Sleeping wasn’t too bad, but it took longer than normal to drift off with the ship in motion. None of them had gotten “space-sick” yet, fortunately, but Leon was still a bit on edge. He and Percival spent a lot of time with Fives reviewing and learning Aurebesh. Gwaine still didn’t have the motivation to do the same, but there was nothing else to do onboard, and he found himself recognizing more and more of the blocky lettering as the hours went by.

At some point, he was roused from sleep by Percival next to him. “What?”

“Fives says we’re almost there.”

“Finally,” he groaned, rubbing his eyes. He missed sunlight. “How much longer?”

Leon answered, sitting a few feet away. “An hour or so.”

A few minutes later, Fives came to sit with them, a small round object in his hand. “Right, so here’s the plan I’ve got so far,” he started, pushing a button on the object. A hologram of a sphere appeared above it, and he set it on the floor in front of them all. “This is Naboo. The RMB--Republic Military Base--is near Theed, the capitol, here.” He pointed to a dot on the planet. “But, we can’t land in or too close to the city.”

“Why not?” Percival asked.

“They’ll scan the ship and ask questions I can’t answer,” Fives answered. “I checked the logs and registration of this ship. It’s owned by a twi’lek woman, and there’ll be no fooling the dispatch on the other end that she’s onboard.”

Gwaine’s brows furrowed, sifting through the words to find meaning. “So they’ll know it’s stolen.”

“Yeah.”

“What’s twi’lek?” he couldn’t help but ask.

“They’re a sentient near-human species,” the clone explained as simply as he could. “Near-humans--they’re like um… Oh, Commander Tano--you met her on Earth last time.”

Leon nodded once, slowly. “Right… orange skin, horns, blue stripes?”

“Yeah. She’s not twi’lek, she’s togruta, but that’s a near-human species. Just as an example.”

“So near-humans,” Gwaine said, attempting to summarize, “they’ve got like… human features, but with some extra bells and whistles?”

Fives paused a second, then nodded. “Yeah, for the most part. Few different colors. Yeah.” Refocusing the conversation, he went on, “Anyway, we can’t land too close to Theed. So, instead, I’m gonna try to land out in the middle of nowhere, and we’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”

“That’s the safest option?” Leon asked.

“The safest I can think of.”

“And… when you say ‘middle of nowhere,’ what exactly do you mean?” Percival asked.

Fives looked a the map, squinting at the area in question. “Pastureland?”

“Not uninhabited,” Percival clarified.

“No. Naboo is an mid-rim planet: it’s closer to the center of the galaxy, and it’s a pretty densely populated planet. I doubt there’s much uninhabited land left.”

Gwaine nodded. “So… space cows.”

“Well… we have cows out here.”

“Wait, seriously?” Of all the things to be found across a whole galaxy, cows were a surprise.

“Yeah. They’re just… cows.”

“Huh.” Gwaine leaned back against the wall of the ship. “Go figure.”

“How far of a walk is it?” Leon wanted to know.

Fives pulled a face. “Not short, sorry. In order to make sure the ship doesn’t draw suspicion, I have to land far enough away.”

Gwaine shrugged. “Don’t sweat it, mate. Walking’s one thing we’re used to out here. Besides, we’ve been cooped up in here for god knows how long. I wouldn’t mind getting my feet sore walking.”

“Yeah, right. You’ll be complaining about it within three hours,” Percival smiled.

“But I won’t be complaining about being stuck in a metal box, now, will I?”

“Yeah, sure.”

“We’ll want to take all our stuff in case we don’t make it back to this ship,” Fives went on. “I’ll keep out of my armor until I need it, to avoid attention.”

“And what’s your plan once you get to the base?” Leon asked. "I assume the rest of us aren't allowed in."

Fives pushed another button on the device and the hologram changed. An image of a blocky structure appeared. “Correct. This is the base. Standard design for Republic bases, so everything should be in the same places I’m used to. Most importantly, I need to find out what my status is. For that I need to get a datapad--I’ll explain those later--and I should be able to borrow one in the base.”

“No one’s gonna question you slipping in?” Percival asked.

“They will,” Fives shrugged. “But I’ll look like a shiny in that armor, so it shouldn’t be too bad if I sound like a laser-brain. A moron.”

“You can lie your way out of a spot, though, yeah?” Gwaine said with an encouraging smile.

“Not really…”

“You can’t lie?”

Fives winced a little and shook his head. “It’s not exactly a strong suit.”

Gwaine exchanged a look with Percival and Leon. That could be a problem for sure. He’d met a few people in his life with no skill to lie, but it wasn’t often they openly admitted it like Fives had just done. He must be _really_ bad.

“Right,” he said, leaning forward and rubbing his hands together. “I will help you. ‘Cause you need a new story, a new name, and you need to believe them. The more time you’ve got to get used to them, the better.”

Fives sighed, turning off the hologram. “I do need a new name, huh?”

Percival shook his head. “Can’t be Fives anymore.”

“At least not to your brothers,” Gwaine added. “You’re still Fives with us.”

He smiled at that, but it looked a little forced. “Right, yeah.”

“So what kind of names do clones have?” Gwaine started.

“Literally anything.”

* * *

Naboo did look a lot like home, Gwaine had to admit. He, Percival, and Leon were staring curiously out the small windows. From what he remembered his home looking like out the window, this planet had the same white clouds, blue watery patches, and greens and browns for the land. Maybe it was just luck that Fives had chosen the military base on Naboo for their first foray in the galaxy, but maybe he was being nice to a trio of clueless Earth… people. What was the name for that--for them? He’d never had to think about it before.

“Welcome to the Naboo system,” Fives announced. “You’re now officially out of the middle of nowhere.”

“Why do you call it the Naboo _system_?” Leon asked, because of course he would ask that.

“It’s shorthand,” the clone replied. “Technically, it’s the Naboo _star_ system.

Leon cast a glance back at Percival and Gwaine. They both shrugged. Gwaine had no idea what he was getting at.

“You don’t know what a star system is?” Fives guessed when Leon didn’t reply.

“Not--well--yes, I think? What is it for you?”

“It’s a star with a bunch of planets orbiting it. Like… every system in the galaxy.”

“Wait, the star is at the center?” Leon asked. “In every system?”

Fives glanced over his shoulder at them. Now Gwaine did understand what Leon was asking. “Yes, every system. The planets go around the stars. Always. It’s--that’s basic astrophysics.”

“Apparently, Earth hasn’t caught up with basic astrophysics yet, boys,” Gwaine said to Leon and Percival. Leon’s brows were drawn so close they might have fused if he’d thought any harder.

“Seriously? First the Earth is flat, now it’s--” Fives cut himself off. “Okay, I probably shouldn’t be judging that harshly, but still.”

“I think what we’re learning is that Earth’s science is a bit egocentric,” Leon replied.

“Yeah, maybe a little. Anyway, sit tight. Landing can be a bit bumpy.”

“He’s said that about a lot of things,” Leon muttered as the three of them sat down against the back wall like they had for hyperspace.

“Well, he did say he’s not a trained pilot,” Percival replied in a matching low voice.

“He’ll do a better job than any of us, right?” Gwaine said. Hopefully, none of them would have to.

Never having experienced a different sort of landing, it was hard to say for sure whether this one was any bumpier than average. The knights watched the black space out the windows grow brighter until there was nothing but a blur of white and the occasional spark flying past them. Eventually, they caught a glimpse of blue sky, then the ship leveled out a bit from the initial descent.

“Score,” Fives’ said to himself from the cockpit--still the funniest word Gwaine had heard out here. “Okay, just a bit more, we’re past the worst of it, guys,” he called back.

After a while more, the ship slowed down, and Gwaine could see green smudges of trees out the windows. There was a final jolt and a hiss from somewhere outside, then everything was still.

Fives spun around to face them. “That went well, yeah?”

“Wouldn’t know any different,” Gwaine replied.

“Right,” Fives went on, scooping up the bag with his armor. “Hope you guys are still up for the walk.”

The knights got to their feet as he went to the door and pushed it open. A rush of fresh air flooded the cabin. They had been in here for far too long for air to smell that sweet.

Gwaine followed Fives out, squinting at the sunlight. “Huh,” he mused, taking in the open plains of bright green grass bordered by forests in the distance and a blue sky above. “Looks pretty familiar,” he said.

“Told you it would,” Fives said, shifting his bag to one arm, then the other to stretch his arms out. “Oh, hang on,” he said, mostly to himself. He set his bag down and climbed back into the cockpit.

Percival bent down to pluck some blades of grass. After a short examination, he nodded, letting them flutter back down to the ground. They seemed to pass whatever inspection he carried out.

After a moment or two, Fives reemerged. “Wiped the navicomputer. Covering my tracks, as it were.” He shouldered his bag again. “Shall we?”

The knights nodded. “Lead on,” Leon said.

The walk was long, as Fives had warned it would be, but Gwaine didn’t mind, genuinely. Naboo was unusually beautiful, and the fresh air and sun were more than welcome after so long in the ship. It was slightly unsettling to pass into a thin forest and hear strange birdcalls--at least he assumed there were birds making those noises--but he decided he could handle a little unsettling. Besides, something told him it was only going to get more unsettling as this quest continued.

The food they had brought was mostly depleted by the time they’d reached Naboo. They had enough, by Fives’ reckoning, to make it to Theed, but they’d need to replenish their supplies there. That would be an adventure by itself. Gwaine had faith his ability to get around big cities--he’d had live like that for years, but not when he was with three other people, including a galactic fugitive. It would definitely be new. All of this would be new.

They stopped for a break when the sun above them reached its high point--that at least hadn’t changed yet. There was probably some crazy planet out there where the sun went backwards or something, but Gwaine didn’t want to think about it. They were in another outcrop of the same forest, with wide foliage shading the soft and oddly uncluttered ground and vast root systems close to the surface. Fives had gone to refill their waterskins nearby. Water was distinctly plentiful on Naboo, or at least on this part of it.

Gwaine and Leon sat with their backs against a tree. The bark was smooth, a little like birch or beechwood, but… not.

“So if there are near-human species, you reckon there’s … what--far-human species?” Gwaine asked, voicing his thoughts.

Leon shrugged. “Probably? They’re probably not called that, though.”

“Well, yeah.”

“We’ll probably see some in Theed. It is the capitol, and Naboo sounds like a pretty important place in the galaxy.”

Gwaine nodded. “And we’re not out in the middle of fuck-all nowhere anymore.”

He heard Leon scoff. “Yeah, that too.”

Fives and Percival returned not long after and passed out the waterskins.

“Hey, Fives, have you ever been to Naboo?” Gwaine asked. He’d been wondering for a while.

Fives sat down across from him. “Uh… I haven’t ever been on the surface before. The 501st was here a couple years ago. Some evil scientist had a secret underground lair here. He was regenerating the most deadly virus in the galaxy.”

“What’s a virus?” Leon asked.

There was the usual expression they received when they appeared extra clueless. “It’s… it’s what causes diseases. Viruses and bacteria. And I have seen your medical technology, and I really should have known you wouldn’t know what they are.” He sat forward. “So basically, they’re these little, tiny, very small--you can’t see them unless you’ve got like…” He searched for the best term. “Really, really, _really_ strong glasses. Which are called microscopes.”

Leon squinted, then nodded. “ _Mikro_ and _skopein_ are Greek for ‘looking at’ and ‘small,’ so I suppose that makes sense.”

The clone blinked at him. “O...kay. Cool. Yeah. So, viruses and bacteria are little… creatures, and they get in your body and mess up everything.”

“Wait, how do they get in?” Percival asked, wearing the same confusion on his face as the others.

“Well, they’re small as hell, so--eyes, nose, mouth, open wounds. That’s why you clean the dirt and crap out of an open wound.”

The knights sat in pensive silence for a moment. Finally, Leon tilted his head slightly. “Huh.”

Percival attempted to pull the conversation back to its original track. “So why weren’t you on Naboo last time?”

“Right. Blue Shadow virus. Only certain members of the 501st were assigned to the mission. I just wasn’t assigned. There was a shiny I knew who was assigned. Spent a week in the medbay recovering from the virus. All I got was a view out the windows on the _Resolute_ in orbit.”

“Probably for the best, yeah?” Gwaine said.

Fives gave a small smile. “Yeah, definitely. That stuff looked nasty.” He shook his head. “Anyway, can we keep walking?” He looked to Percival, who had had the least time to rest.

“Yeah, sure,” he replied. They got to their feet and shouldered the bags once again to continue on their way.

After a couple more hours, Fives pointed out the silhouettes of buildings atop a cliff in the distance. It looked… exposed. Cities that big--at least in Gwaine’s experience on Earth--needed fortifications. There was always a wall or a moat or both, but from what they could see in the far distance, Theed had none of those things.

“Why doesn’t it have walls?” he asked, finding no ready answers. He knew Percival and Leon must be thinking the same thing--Leon for sure.

Fives’ expression scrunched in confusion. “Why would it need walls?”

The knights exchanged a glance, now certainly all on the same page.

“In case an armed force comes over land?” Leon replied, adding a question mark at the end of what should have been an obvious statement.

Fives blinked. Then a spark of realization lit his face. “Oh! Right, right, you guys--your planet is… a little different. See, most of the planets in the inner and mid-rim territories are united under single, planetary-wide governmental treaties or agreements. There wouldn’t _be_ any armed forces marching against Theed because the governments of the Naboo people above water and the gungans _below_ are all at peace. So. No beef.”

Now is was the knights’ turn to blink at him blankly.

“How is that even possible?” Leon asked, voicing all their thoughts. “A whole planet?”

Fives shrugged. “Like I said, plenty of planets in the galaxy manage it. I guess the whole concept of a bigger galaxy and the possibility of interplanetary war are pretty strong motivators to have a united homefront?”

By the look on his face, Leon wasn’t satisfied. Gwaine wasn’t surprised. “But--how--what about--aren’t there, you know, smaller organizations on the planet?” he insisted as they started walking again. “Different societies in different climates and--and geographies--”

“That… is another thing,” Fives cut in, holding up a finger. Percival and Gwaine came to a silent agreement to let Leon and Fives have at this. “The large majority of planets in the galaxy--at least the inhabited ones--they don’t have many different climates. Like Kamino, where the cloning facilities are, is entirely ocean and rain. Naboo is mostly this… nice stuff.” He gestured around at the temperate land. “Tatooine is all desert and sand; Mustafar is entirely lava and erupting volcanoes; Mon Calamari is another ocean world, but it’s a bit friendlier than Kamino, I think.”

“Better not mention too many water worlds or Leon won’t want to help anymore,” Gwaine added, unable to resist the jab. The glare was worth it.

“So, our planet,” Leon said, trying summarize--and ignore him, “with multiple climates and only one sentient race… is odd?”

Fives nodded. “Yeah. Not entirely uncommon, but… yeah, it’s a bit weird.”

There was a moment of silence while they processed this, but Percival broke it before Leon could. “What was it you were saying about people living below water here?”

“Oh, yeah, the gungan underwater cities. They’re around. The gungan capitol is Otoh Gunga in Lake Paongo, but we’re a ways from there.”

“Good,” Leon muttered.

Gwaine smiled. Leon was normally so in-control, it was a little amusing to see him so far out of his depth--pun definitely intended. “I take it we’re not gonna stop by for a visit.”

Fives snorted. “Stars no. We’d need rebreathers--those are uh--” he gestured around his face-- “they let non-aquatic beings breathe underwater. Or, we’d need an aquatic ship, and those aren’t exactly easy to come by when you’re trying to keep a low profile.”

“Oh.” Honestly, he should have expected there would be a way for humans to go to an underwater city, but he hadn’t expected it to sound so simple. Then again, Fives’ relatively vast knowledge of the galaxy made everything seem simple. “And gungans are... ?”

“They’re an amphibious humanoid race native to Naboo. You’ll see plenty of them in Theed, I can pretty much guarantee that.”

“Fun.”

The current patch of forest they were in thinned out once again into open grassland as they adjusted their course towards the city in the distance. Gwaine’s feet were beginning to complain about the continuous walking, but he didn’t voice it. Perhaps it was out of spite from Percival’s comment before landing on Naboo. No one else was complaining, anyway, but he had his suspicions that Fives had walked much further than this--that he would say he was “designed” for it.

That still didn’t sit right with Gwaine. It probably never would. But that’s why he was here.

Leon was once again in conversation with Fives, the poor guy, so Gwaine drifted over to Percival. “Haven’t heard me complain, have you?” he said with a smug smile.

His friend shook his head. “I have not. I am impressed. But we’ve still got to reach the city, then I’ll admit I was incorrect in my predictions.”

Gwaine huffed. “Of course, you’ve gotta make it a fair fight.”

Percival smiled. “What? It’s only another couple hours. Maybe three. You worried you’ll crack? Are you only saying something about it now because you know you’re not gonna make it without whining?”

“Don’t think too hard, Percy. Wouldn’t want you to wear yourself out before we see the big space city.”

“Oh shut it.”

Their conversation was cut abruptly short when Leon and Fives stopped walking ahead of them. Gwaine and Percival stopped with them, looking for what had caused the halt. Gwaine heard it before he saw it, like a group of horses cantering closer and closer to them. In almost no time, his eyes caught motion, and he and the others turned to watch a herd of… creatures rumble into view. They were large--larger than even the biggest bulls Gwaine had seen back home, and oddly rotund, almost spherical. As the herd slowed, he could see four far-too-skinny legs holding up their massive bodies, and lighter brown patterns rippling over their skin, a little like fawns in coloration. Eventually, their path was overtaken by nearly two score of the big brown animals, now grazing peacefully on the bright green grass.

“Space cows?” Gwaine guessed.

Fives nodded. “They’re shaaks. But… yeah. Space cows.”

“How do those legs hold up that much?” Percival mused as they started moving again, Fives steering them towards the edge of the large herd.

“I’ve never understood it either,” Fives admitted. “This is the first time I’ve seen one up close. You can ride them too, if they’re trained, I guess.”

The quiet mutter and slight roll of Fives’ shoulders suggested he was not ready to try riding any strange animals again just yet. Gwaine angled his head up at one of the beasts as they passed. The crest of their round backs was easily two meters up in the air--and it was _round_. How would a saddle even stay on? He had to agree with Fives on this one.

They skirted the herd easily, the creatures mostly ambling out of their way as they walked. They wore small bells around their necks, just like cattle back home. After that, it seemed a relatively smooth road to Theed, whose domed buildings loomed closer and closer as they went. How the hell had they managed domed buildings?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ready to see just how much Fives' lying skills have improved since Umbara? You'll see as soon as I figure out what the next chapter is doing. But thanks for reading!


End file.
